Will Smith's concert crowds are real, but AI is blurring the lines

Summary

This minute-long clip of a Will Smith concert is blowing up online for all the wrong reasons, with people accusing him of using AI to generate fake crowds filled with fake fans carrying fake signs. The story’s blown up a bit, with coverage in Rolling Stone, NME, The Independent, and Consequence of Sound. VIDEO And it definitely looks terrible! The faces have all the characteristics of AI slop, with familiar artifacts like uncanny features, smeared faces, multiple fingers/limbs, and nonsensical signage. “From West Philly to West Swig̴̙̕g̷̤̔͜y”? It gets worse the more you look at it. But here’s where things get complicated. The crowds are real. Every person you see in the video above started out as real footage of real fans, pulled from video of multiple Will Smith concerts during his recent European tour. Real Crowds, Real Signs The main Will Smith performance footage in the clip is from the Positiv Festival, held last month at the Théâtre Antique d’Orange in Orange, France. (Here’s a phone recording from the audience of the first half of the performance.) It’s intercut with various shots of audiences from Gurtenfestival and Paléo in Switzerland, the Ronquieres Festival in Belgium, among others. From this slideshow of photos from the Paléo festival in Nyon, Switzerland, you can see professionally-shot photos of the same audience from the video. The signs, previously distorted, can now be read, like this one which actually reads “From West Philly to West Swizzy.” (Short for Switzerland, if you’re wondering.) One of the most egregious examples is the couple holding the sign thanking Will Smith for helping them survive cancer which — if it was AI-generated slop — would be pretty disgusting: a gross attempt to drum up sympathy with fake people. In an article posted by The Independent today, music editor Roisin O’Connor points to the couple as clear evidence of AI generation: “Another shot shows a man’s knuckle appear to blur along with his sign, which reads ‘You Can Make...