The guy behind the viral fake photo of the Pope in a puffy coat says using AI to make images of celebrities 'might be the line' — and calls for greater regulation

• An AI-generated image showing the Pope in a luxurious puffer coat went viral over the weekend.
• Its creator spoke to BuzzFeed about his belief that laws should regulate the technology.

A man who created a viral fake image of the Pope wearing a white puffer coat told BuzzFeed about his concerns that using AI to create images of celebrities and public figures "might be the line."

After first being posted to Facebook and Reddit last Friday, the image was reshared across social media with one tweet reaching over 200,000 likes. Some just joked about the head of the Roman Catholic Church appearing to wear a luxurious garment more suited to Paris Fashion Week than the Holy See, but its virality sparked conversation about the ethics of AI image generators.

In a tweet seen over 4 million times, Ryan Broderick, writer of the web culture newsletter Garbage Day, said "Balenciaga pope might be the first real mass-level AI misinformation case."

It was generated with Midjourney by Pablo Xavier, a construction worker based in the Chicago area, who declined to share his full name with Buzzfeed over privacy concerns.

"As far as using it for regular images, if you want to do a Vincent van Gogh, I feel that kind of stuff is fine," he told the outlet. "Using it for public figures, that might be the line."

He said it was "definitely scary" that "people are running with it and thought it was real without questioning it." And while he hadn't considered the impact of AI images before, added: "It's definitely going to get serious if they don't start implementing laws to regulate it."

The realism of the image was possible due to Midjourney V5 – released on March 15 – which can accurately reproduce public figures, among other updates. Fake pictures of Donald Trump being arrested were the first to spread, with the former president even sharing another AI-generated image of himself, per the BBC.

And in 2019, the Pope warned Silicon Valley that AI and other technological advancements could "lead to unfortunate regression to a form of barbarism."

BuzzFeed reports that Pablo Xavier grew up in a Catholic family but doesn't follow the religion today. He added that he had "no ill will" and "just thought it was funny to see the Pope in a funny jacket."

"I figured I was going to get backlash," he told BuzzFeed. "I just didn't think it was going to be to this magnitude."