WESTBROOK (WGME) — Westbrook police are apologizing after posting an AI-altered photo of evidence from a drug arrest.
People online quickly called out the photo as being manipulated by artificial intelligence.
The altered photo has some key differences from the real photo taken of the evidence.
Westbrook police say the original photo was edited with ChatGPT to add the department’s logo to it, but they say they didn’t know this would change other items in the photo as well.
The original photo was from a drug arrest on Brackett Street where police found meth and fentanyl.
They say the officer involved in the arrest wanted to add the department’s patch to the picture to identify Westbrook Police Department as the arresting agency.
So, the officer used ChatGPT to create a new photo with the Westbrook patch in it.
They say adding the logo is standard procedure, but they usually use a physical patch included in the actual picture, not one that is generated through a software system.
After posting the picture on their social media, commenters quickly spotted the differences in the photos, like the “cookie” stickers missing from the first photo, some drug residue removed and the color of certain items changed.
“When we look and compare the two photos, it’s really bizarre as to what that app did to the photo,” Westbrook Police Captain Steven Goldberg said. “As you mentioned, it got rid of those cookie cutter packaging, it completely redid the lettering of some of the packages and it seemed to alter some of the things we took pictures of. I know we mentioned the spoon and the case, and we don’t have a good explanation why.”
Westbrook police say it was never their intention to alter the image of the evidence, and they often post photos like these to social media to show dangerous drugs have been removed from the community.
