Jan 26, 2026

Hany Farid Comments on AI-Enhancement Images from Minnesota Shooting

From AFP

AI-enhanced image depicting shooting of Minnesota nurse includes hallucinations

By Gwen Roley

Social media is awash with graphic footage from the moment US federal immigration agents shot and killed 37-year-old intensive care nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis, Minnesota, but one supposed frame from the scene was manipulated using artificial intelligence.

Experts confirmed the image was a synthetic enhancement of authentic video of the shooting, as is evidenced by one figure missing his head... Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s School of Information (archived here), told AFP the GetReal Security lab he co-founded also concluded the image was an AI enhancement of a real video frame.

He said this type of AI-generation has become popular as users try to create clear images from original but low-quality videos. "The issue with these images is that the AI enhancement tends to hallucinate details," he said in a January 26 email...

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Hany Farid is a professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences and the School of Information at UC Berkeley. 

Last updated: February 4, 2026