I attended a graduation session where students refused to come on stage when the photographer experienced a technical problem with his camera. We live in an era where photographic evidence is required to prove that something happened. However, it may merely be evidence that someone knows how to use an artificial intelligence tool.
Recent reports of people manipulating images or even qualifications, then dismissing the deception as humorous or playful, raise a serious question: when does digital creativity become misrepresentation and public deception? The answer should be of particular importance to a university community, where credibility rests on evidence and intellectual honesty.
AI-based editing is astonishingly easy, and the tools are freely available. With a few prompts, an ordinary photograph can place someone at an international conference they never attended, beside a respected scholar they never met, or on a platform where they never spoke. Can we compare this with placing yourself next to a celebrity or at an exotic holiday destination? Humour and creativity have always involved exaggeration, but there is an ethical line. It is crossed when an altered image is presented without disclosure in circumstances where viewers could reasonably believe it records an actual event.
An invented conference photograph is not just an edited picture; it is a false professional claim. It implies a level of academic recognition or institutional representation that never occurred. Although someone might argue that it was merely a picture posted on a LinkedIn or Facebook profile, others may use it to form an opinion about that person’s professional standing.
South Africa has already experienced damaging forms of such visual deception. Journalist Leanne Manas’s image was used in advertisements. Many of you probably saw the video of Elon Musk promising investors huge monthly profits. These cases demonstrate how manipulated images and deepfake videos can exploit the credibility and authority people associate with the individuals depicted.
The legal position is developing, but the decision to edit an image should primarily be guided by ethics rather than legality. Calling image manipulation a joke does not automatically remove the deception. Humour depends on the audience understanding that something is not real. Misrepresentation depends on the hope that they will believe it is.
We therefore need to adopt a simple rule of digital integrity: if an image has been altered in a way that changes its factual meaning, say so. Label it as AI-generated or digitally altered. Preserve the original. Never use an altered image as evidence of attendance, achievement, endorsement or association.
AI tools allow us to alter visual reality. They do not give us an ethical right to alter the truth. Before clicking “post”, we should ask not “Does this look real?” but rather “Am I inviting people to believe something that never happened?”
By Prof. Linda du Plessis, senior deputy vice-chancellor for teaching and learning at the North-West University (NWU).
