Artificial blue skies, furniture and roaring fires: where is the limit to manipulating real estate photos? – ABC, listen

Stewart Bunn
Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving into real estate and the risks are changing just as quickly, and as you described, it is sometimes difficult to tell the difference between a real photo and a non-real photo. And we’ve seen some examples across the industry of applications of AI that may not be common sense, and we’re keen to avoid that.

Lucy Breaden
So why do real estate agents or whoever use AI to manipulate photos? What’s going on there?

Stewart Bunn
Well, it starts, as you said, from the perspective that an agent’s job is to maximize the presentation of a person’s property when they’re selling it or renting it out, and what we’ve typically seen recently is that with vacant properties, we’re seeing agents showcasing those properties, whereas before they might have rented furniture for a six-week period of an auction or a sales period, they can now use AI to insert furniture into the property, and in some ways, as long as it…