I thought I was immune to being fooled online. Then I saw the pope in a coat | Joel Golby

An encounter with an AI-generated image of his holiness has changed me: I now have sympathy for credulous baby boomers

It happened to me: I thought the image of the pope in a big coat was real. Here's my first excuse: I don't really know much about popes. His holiness can be out there doing his things, and I can be over here doing mine, and our ecosystems never really cross. I think I just idly assumed: this one is the cool pope, right? We had the really popey pope, and then the German pope who looked a bit like he might be in Star Wars, and now we have the cool pope. Right? He's always doing tweets and saying something very slightly liberal. He's cool! So I thought wearing a really big coat and looking like a Metal Gear Solid 2 boss battle might have been part of his ongoing cool guy shtick. Lord, forgive me.

As it turns out, the image of the pope in a big coat, which was doing the rounds on social media this weekend, was generated by AI. The i reliably informs me that it was created using a program called Midjourney and was seemingly first shared on a Reddit page dedicated to AI art, before going viral on Twitter.

Joel Golby is a writer for the Guardian and Vice, and the author of Brilliant, Brilliant, Brilliant Brilliant Brilliant