Last week, Lionel Messi appeared to be omnipresent across India. The football icon was seen in rural Telangana homes sipping ginger tea, outside Hyderabad's Uppal stadium, and amidst crowds in festive attire. This widespread visual phenomenon, however, wasn't entirely real. It was fueled by a massive wave of artificial intelligence-generated imagery that blurred the boundaries between fact and fiction for countless social media users.
The Prohibitive Price Tag That Sparked an AI Revolution
The frenzy had a clear origin. Organisers for Messi's visit set the price for a personal meet-and-greet and photograph with the legend at a staggering Rs 10 lakh. For the vast majority of fans, this cost was completely out of reach. Artificial intelligence stepped in as the great equalizer, offering a free and accessible alternative. Fans turned to AI platforms, using detailed text prompts to create remarkably convincing pictures of themselves with the Argentine superstar.
These images showed fans taking selfies, posing casually, or even having Messi hold the phone for the picture. The results were so realistic that many scrolling through their feeds believed them to be authentic photographs from the tour, which took place between December 13 and 15 across Kolkata, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Delhi.
Real vs. Fake: The Social Media Battlefield
As the AI images flooded timelines, a digital detective game ensued. Some users quickly flagged the pictures as AI-generated, pointing out subtle flaws. Others dismissed any scepticism with a common retort: "Haters say it is AI." The community became a mix of open-source creators and secretive posters. Some users generously shared the exact prompts they used, explaining how they recreated lighting and angles for believability. Others remained silent, letting speculation about their images' authenticity run wild.
Amid this deluge of digital creations, the handful of genuine photos from the actual tour struggled for visibility. The Times of India verified some authentic images, and AI tools confirmed they were real. Yet, the irony was profound: many AI fakes were of such high quality that even AI detection platforms hesitated, unable to give a definitive verdict on their authenticity.
The Tell-Tale Signs and Missed Details
The quality of the deception often hinged on the precision of the user's prompt. One Hyderabad-based techie shared an image with Messi captioned "Messi craze. Rs 10 lakh worth pic." When questioned about the location, she mysteriously replied, "It was a low-key appearance, I can't reveal that." An observant user, however, spotted a crucial error: "You should have given a cleaner AI prompt so that Messi's jersey has three stars and not two, because ever since 2022, that jersey goes with three stars."
In another intriguing case, a fan posted a picture showing himself with Messi and Telangana Chief Minister A. Revanth Reddy inside a stadium, with policemen in the background. An AI analysis found all elements plausible but stopped short of confirming the image as real, showcasing the grey area these tools now inhabit.
There were clearer failures too. One individual claimed a selfie with Messi in Argentina three years prior to the India tour. An AI check swiftly dismissed it as fabricated. In Messi's India moment, reality and imagination collided spectacularly, and advanced AI technology made distinguishing between them harder than ever before.
