When the Westbrook Police Department in Maine took one of those embarrassing photos of a supposedly impressive seizure of illicit substances, they determined it wasn’t impressive enough. They figured they’d spruce up their haul by running the picture through ChatGPT. They would’ve gotten away with it, too, if it weren’t for everyone being able to immediately tell it had undergone a few poorly executed AI “enhancements.”
It all started when the department proudly posted an image of a narcotics seizure to Facebook. As with any image that’s been completely generated or even just “enhanced” by AI, you can tell. We can all tell. It makes the world look like putty, like the pictures were snapped in the Gumby universe. Human faces look like they could be stretched like supple dough, and pictures of drug bust seizures end up looking like smeared watercolor paintings.
Text on packages resembled ancient runes, mangled into gibberish in the way only AI can produce. It also weirdly cleaned up the image, scrubbing away little details that make the original look like an even more impressive bust.
For instance, in the original image, a seized drug scale is dusted from corner to corner with a very druggy-looking white powder. The AI looks like it wiped down the scale to make it more presentable for a photo. They also added an odd little Westbrook PD badge in the background, which I guess was supposed to look like it was affixed to the wall behind the drugs, but ends up looking more like when you cover up someone’s face in a picture with an emoji.
“This Is NOT an AI-Generated Photo”
Locals with two eyes and a functioning brain immediately called out the image for the AI slop that it was. But rather than log off and regroup, the department doubled down, claiming the gibberish vape packaging was probably international, and maybe those dastardly drug kingpins overseas were the ones using AI. Sure, bud.
“We want to set the record straight — this is NOT an AI-generated photo,” the town’s PD claimed in a now-deleted post, per WMTW. “What you see is what was seized by officers during the course of the drug arrests. Is the packaging weird and look like gibberish or a different language? Yes. But that is legitimately what was located and seized by officers.”
“The packaging is most likely foreign,” they continued, “and it is possible that whoever made the packaging used AI to make a clearly knock-off package.”
No one was fooled. After accumulating enough public ridicule to sate their humiliation fetish for several lifetimes, Westbrook PD finally admitted the image had been tampered with by the arresting officer, who used an AI app to add a department patch. In doing so, the app took it upon itself to mutate the entire image, and no one noticed until they posted it online to an audience of local Mainers, who immediately noticed.
Rather than admit the whole thing was a dumb mistake, the department dug in its heels, demanding that everyone believe what was obviously untrue. Until the police captain came clean, that is.
“We are holding ourselves accountable by being upfront with it and inviting the media in to see the evidence that was seized, so they understand this was legitimate evidence and that we weren’t using AI to trump up any charges or make things up,” Westbrook Police Captain Steven Goldberg said.
We can only hope this is a one-off incident and not a harbinger of much more AI-enhanced corruption to come.