Apple is ‘concerned’ about AI turning real photos into ‘fantasy’

Apple software chief Craig Federighi said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that the company wants its AI-powered image editing to preserve photo authenticity, and that Apple is "concerned" about AI's impact on how people view photos as reflections of reality. The iOS 18.1 Photos app gains a "Clean Up" feature that removes objects and people from images, which Federighi and WSJ reporter Joanna Stern noted is far more limited than the editing tools offered by Google and Samsung. Edited images will be tagged "Modified with Clean Up" and embedded with metadata flagging the alteration. Apple Intelligence does not currently let users add AI-generated content to images, and it is unclear whether Apple's metadata system will support the Adobe-driven Content Authenticity Initiative's Content Credentials.