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Comment by gampleman | Hacker News Reader

I don't know how to feel about this entirely. Like I get the whole AI generated images bad angle, but on the other hand as someone running a charity I can see the benefit of not wasting donation money on sending a professional photographer to an actual slum and paying probably tens of thousands of dollars to get good quality photos and instead getting usable pictures for free-ish.

When running a charity you need to spend money on things that aren't strictly the mission (such as fundraising) so that you can continue to operate, but every dollar that goes towards those activities is in a sense wasted. Knowing where investing is necessary and where to skimp is the essence of good charity management. I can't really see the argument that promotional photography wouldn't be the latter.

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If you don't get real photos though, how do you know you aren't misrepresenting the people you are aiding? You could very well be exaggerating their plight which will make your donors feel scammed if the truth comes out.

There's a world of difference between a smartphone snapped photo by a volunteer and what a professional photographer would produce. The first will give you a pretty good idea of what's going on, but will be completely unsuitable for what's effectively a display ad.

For instance in the charity I run, we have about a thousand pictures of real operations taken by amateurs. For our posters we still prefer staged professional photos, since they look 100x better and communicate our message much more effectively. And yes, it does annoy me that this is the case, but again, the goal of my charity isn't to pursue truth in advertising, it's to achieve an actual goal (which is the goal people have already entrusted us with their real money, so one does have a healthy fear of wasting it).

On a deeper level it's sort of like why paintings sometimes feel more true than photographs in the sense that they can communicate how we perceive a place and what it means to us in a way that a photo often cannot.

I get there's some nuance, but "don't lie to your donors" is a pretty decent North Star for ashy charity group.

Not to mention that the real impoverished child or rape victim may not want to be the poster child for a cause.

It is a tricky question and for me there is no clear answer.

Perhaps if the image came with a disclaimer that explained the rationale for using AI.

Think about it from the perspective of a possible benefactor. If they're being lured in with these images at all, there's clearly an emotional element to it. If they start realizing the images weren't real at all, there's a very good chance they will stop donating because you have lied to them. The crux of their support was based on falsehoods.

Personally, I'd prefer donating to an organization that isn't trying to use "sad" images to gut-punch me in the first place. There's a reason the "Arms Of An Angel" ASCPA ads are a laughingstock.

I have a feeling this will have exactly that effect of chilling donations. Because I would have this reaction. How would I know the photos are real? It’s not like I’d say no and go away, I might say “I don’t have a time right now to verify this. I’ll come back later” and then forget.

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