Netflix Uses Seemingly AI-Manipulated Images in True Crime Doc

This is messed up.

What Netflix Did

Netflix has used what strongly appears to be AI-generated or -manipulated images in a recent documentary about a murder-for-hire plot involving a woman named Jennifer Pan that took place in Canada back in 2010.

The streaming service used the photos to illustrate her "bubbly, happy, confident, and very genuine" personality, as high school friend Nam Nguyen described her.

The images that appear around the 28-minute mark of Netflix's "What Jennifer Did," have all the hallmarks of an AI-generated photo, down to mangled hands and fingers, misshapen facial features, morphed objects in the background, and a far-too-long front tooth.

AI True Crime

Needless to say, using generative AI to describe a real person in a true-crime documentary is bound to raise some eyebrows. We've come across examples of companies coming up with fictional, AI-generated material as set dressing —a recent episode of HBO's "True Detective" featured bizarre, AI-generated posters in the background of a shot. But resorting to the tech to generate pictures of a real person, especially of somebody who's still in jail and will only be eligible for parole around 2040, should raise some alarm bells.

This isn't inventing a fictional narrative for the sake of entertainment — this is tinkering with the fabric of reality itself to manipulate a true story that actually happened.

Futurism has reached out to Netflix for comment.

More on AI-generated images in media: [UPDATED] AI-Generated Poster Confirmed in "True Detective"