I like the story, but I think people will notice pretty quickly as almost everyone reviews their photos right after taking them (so they can compare them with what they see in reality)
Just take the story above with one more minor step: You snap a pic of the park, briefly glanced at it to make sure it wasn't blurry (which the AI would have fixed anyway) or had an ugly glare (it did, the AI fixed it) or worse a finger (the AI also fixed that).
You're satisfied the image was captured faithfully and you did a good job holding your plastic rectangle to capture unseen sights. You didn't look closely enough to notice all the faked details, because they were so good.
This fake moon super enhance? It already proves people will fall for it. I could easily see people not realizing AI turned the flowers in the picture more red, or the grass just a little too green, etc.
The story has to get stretched a lot to imagine a total dystopia, but its possible.
People like digital mirrors for all their benefits: lighter, more features, music and weather all on one "mirror". You can have voice chats, see how you might look with various makeup/styles/haircuts. This digital mirror gets so popular, and (undermining myself here a bit) high enough quality, that people want these new cool wall screens instead.
And you betcha, AI is of course going to be added. Take insta pics without needing to hold a phone, then apply filters all in one with your voice! Some people take dozens of photos, forgetting briefly how they look.
Now, people are used to every day seeing themselves in the digital mirror with minor touchups for how they would look if they used some sponsored makeup. They used to do it daily so it would match, but kept forgetting as it always showed the improved version (with a small icon saying, you are 40% matched to the predicted image!).
Some 20-something walking around in Chicago passes The Bean, and realizes they don't look quite the same as they did in their home mirror. They take out their phone to take a pic of themselves, which is of course synced to their mirror with the same "makeup enhancement suggestions", still warning them it doesn't match.
They put away their phone, confident in the knowledge The Bean is just a dirty and distorted mirror, which is why they don't look as good. The camera has always been trustworthy. Why doubt it today?
(again, fun story, I don't think this is likely. Just plausible for some people).
The contrast between what my camera raw with a stock profile puts out and what my iphone puts out is striking, and it's very clear the iphone's version of reality is optimized for Instagram and maximum color punch at the cost of looking real.
Thing is, that's what people like. So that's what we're getting.
Reality be damned.
Silicon Valley is pretty famously nice out most days. (Except for all those old strip malls in the way of the nature.)
https://www.destinationtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/P...
https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Giza_pyr...
https://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/view-side-slums-egyptian-pyr...
My point is that there never has been, cameras have always let you adjust the shot - including "how red the flowers are" by changing light source, film type, shadows, which contrasting other colours are nearby, etc.
With old-school photo processing--yes, in a darkroom--you could achieve unrealistic results. But it was a choice. That's not what you got when you sent your negatives to the Costco to get printed. That's akin to the results I get when I use my camera, especially when looking at jpgs straight-out-of-the-camera.
In contrast, we get modern cellphones doing incredible processing to almost arbitrarily replace content with what some algorithm feels you'll like better, whether or not it resembles reality.
I lament that it usually resembles beginner photographer work, where they've just discovered HDR tone-mapping, local contrast, global contrast, saturation, sharpening, and smoothing filters, and promptly slam every single one of them to the stops. I did it, and now I recognize it when I see it in cellphone pics my friends send me via imessage.
Been there, done that. I recognize the stigmata of saturation slammed to the stops and excessive use of HDR and local contrast.
The default is excessive editing now, probably because it helps cover up limitations of tiny sensors, small optics, and poor exposure due to poor technique.
It does have higher than real contrast, but that's because images are 8-bit - if you don't try to fill the range, it's going to look low quality with banding artifacts.
https://9to5mac.com/2023/01/06/mkbhd-post-processing-ruining...
Larger cameras don't do that specific one as much ("dynamic range optimizer" or HDR programs do some of it), but they do care about skin in white balance and autofocus, and then photographers care when they're setting up flashes.
It's somewhat overtuned here though.
I generally just burst-mode-scan an area or scenery location and later that night, or when I add to Strava or wherever, I have an old school contact sheet (but with 60-80 images per thing) to look though. Then narrow it down to 5-10, pick the one or two I like best and discard the rest.