References included in iOS 27 beta 5 point to a new feature designed to authenticate the camera source of an iPhone photo. Here are the details.
Apple working on new Reference Image feature
While the challenge posed by synthetic images trying to pass as authentic is not new, it has become an increasingly pressing issue with the rise of generative AI imagery.
What used to take a skilled photo editor hours, or even days, can now be accomplished in seconds, with little more than a short prompt based on a half-formed idea.
To address this, several companies have already introduced ways to make AI-generated content easier to identify. Google, for instance, developed SynthID, which embeds imperceptible watermarks into AI-generated images and other media. The technology has since expanded beyond Google’s own products, with companies including OpenAI adopting it for generated images.
