AI Generated Photos Of The Pope Playing Basketball Going Viral

AI Generated Photos Of The Pope Playing Basketball Now Going Viral Online

Over the last few weeks, dozens of photos have appeared showing the Pope in strange scenarios, sending social media into a tizzy.

Apart from the pontiff himself, the images all have something in common: They are fake, made by artificial intelligence tools that create images from short text prompts.

Again, new AI generated photos of the leader of the world’s Roman Catholics playing basketball has surfaced online and have since gone viral, garnering mixed reactions from folks online.

AI generated photos of the Pope playing basketball are now going viral online 🤣🏀 pic.twitter.com/yNh8Uc1T46

— Daily Loud (@DailyLoud) April 18, 2023

“Breaking bread and breaking ankles,” someone commented. “He got the dopest AI pics,” another person wrote.

Many public figures — including the basketball star LeBron James and various Real Housewives — have popped up in A.I.-generated pictures recently, but the images with Francis have made the biggest splash.

They have earned more views, likes and comments than many other A.I. photos, according to a review by The New York Times, prompting a race to depict the 86-year-old in odder and odder situations.

Francis’s prevalence in A.I.-generated images is the result of a perfect storm of factors, religious experts said. After 10 years as the head of the Catholic Church, he is instantly recognizable around the world. He is viewed as a more approachable leader than his harder-line predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI.