How Serious Is Netflixs Use of AI in What Jennifer Did?

The Big Picture

• Several entertainment projects, including True Detective, Late Night with the Devil , and Civil War , have been assumed to have used AI-generated images.
• Netflix's documentary What Jennifer Did has faced backlash for allegedly using AI to create false images of convicted killer Jennifer Pan.
• The use of AI in documentaries raises concerns about trust and authenticity, as viewers may question the validity of all images presented.

Across the entertainment industry, there have already been multiple controversial uses of artificially generated images since the available technology made leaps forward in 2023. The trend began with Disney using a series of AI-generated images in the credit sequence for Secret Invasion last year. Recently, there has been a seemingly endless flurry of further critiques directed at Max' most recent season of True Detective, as well as the films Late Night with the Devil and Civil War, each of which made use of AI images in various ways. However, the most recent scandal is even more alarming. Netflix's latest true-crime documentaryWhat Jennifer Did has been alleged to have used AI to create what are presented as actual photographs of its subject, convicted killer Jennifer Pan. The allegations were first made public by Futurism and only subsequently addressed by the documentary's producer, meaning that any use of AI was intended to go undetected. The use of AI images in a documentary, where there is a different bond of trust between creator and audience, raises even greater concerns about how this technology is being employed, and what will come of its growing use.

What Jennifer Did (2024)

Exploring a landmark legal case, the film examines the life and trials of Jennifer, whose actions landed her in the national spotlight. It combines personal interviews, media coverage, and expert analysis to discuss the broader implications of her case on legal ethics, media influence, and public perception.

What Is 'What Jennifer Did' About?

What Jennifer Did was directed by Jenny Popplewell, her second Netflix true-crime documentary after 2020's American Murder: The Family Next Door. This time, the subject is a Canadian crime story. In 2010, 24-year-old Jennifer Pan was home with her family when three men entered the house in an apparent burglary. Her mother, Bich Ha Pan, was killed, and her father, Huei Hann Pan, was left in a coma. The police investigating the killing assumed at first that Jennifer was a victim. But while investigating the incident, details came to light that cast doubt on her story, including security camera footage that showed the killers entering the Pan home but appeared to show no sign of forced entry. When her father awoke from a coma, he said that he saw her whispering with the assailants in a friendly manner.

An investigation into Pan's life revealed that she had spent several months lying to her parents about attending college – going as far as fabricating college transcripts and student loan documents. In truth, she had not graduated from high school, and her acceptance to Toronto Metropolitan University had been rescinded. Eventually, Pan was connected to the killers through text messages obtained from her phone and made a partial confession. She was later convicted of murder and attempted murder, as were the three assailants that she was alleged to have been hired to kill her parents so they could split her potential inheritance.

Did 'What Jennifer Did' Use AI?

What Jennifer Did tracks the investigation through the perspective of the detectives assigned to the case, who are interviewed extensively. That means that, at the beginning of the documentary, Pan is presented as she would have first appeared — a normal 24-year-old who was the random victim of a horrible crime. When the police start investigating Pan, three candid pictures of her are shown to illustrate a friend's positive description of her as "happy, bubbly, confident, and very genuine." The pictures all show Pan smiling, and in two of them, she is flashing peace signs at the camera.

One of these pictures is suspected of being generated by AI because of multiple irregularities in Pan's hands (hands are known to be a challenge for many AI image generators to get right.) Additionally, in the background behind her, a bookshelf seems to contain multiple strange objects that cannot be identified. A second photo, a closeup of Pan, is suspected of being generated by AI because of an irregularity of her gumline which isn't identifiable anywhere else. The irregularities have been thoroughly cataloged.

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As of this writing, the only response from any of the creators of the documentary to these allegations has come from Jeremy Grimaldi, who is credited as an executive producer. Grimaldi is also a crime reporter who covered the Pan trial and wrote the 2016 book A Daughter's Deadly Deception: The Jennifer Pan Story. In response to an inquiry from the Toronto Star, Grimaldi denied that the image of Pan had been altered while acknowledging that something had been done to the image's background in order to disguise the identity of the person who had provided the original photograph. “Any filmmaker will use different tools, like Photoshop, in films,” Grimaldi said. He added, “the photos of Jennifer are real photos of her. The foreground is exactly her. The background has been anonymized to protect the source.” This statement is unclear in what method was used to "anonymize" the background of the picture. It also does not explain the numerous signs that suggest both the background and foreground of the picture in question are AI-generated.

Why Does It Matter if a Documentary Uses an AI-generated image?

To some, it may not seem like a huge deal that these images could've been AI-generated. After all, they only appear on screen for a few seconds. And though Jennifer Pan is appealing her conviction, it isn't clear how a picture aiming to show how normal she was on the surface would sway a judge or jury. As many argue, documentaries already create a distorted picture of reality simply through the editing process reflecting the director's point of view. True-crime documentaries already heighten reality through extensive use of reenactments, which they blend with archival footage. Does this new use of technology to create a fake image really matter?

Probably the most important reason that it does matter is that even a handful of AI images in a single documentary makes it difficult to trust any of the images the documentary in question shows. It also casts a shadow of doubt over all of the information the documentary presents you with. Watching What Jennifer Did with the knowledge that it is alleged to have one or two AI images makes all the photographs used seem suspect. This makes sense, because while most of us have a pretty attuned sense of what footage in a true-crime documentary has been reenacted in a studio – even when it's not labeled – it can still be very difficult to tell an AI image from the real thing. Online, people have said that they will no longer trust any of Netflix's true-crime documentaries.

Specifically, it may seem that these particular images are not that harmful. There's already one image of Jennifer Pan smiling that no one disputes, so what difference does it make to generate a few others to fill the frame? But even in this seemingly neutral decision, there are hidden consequences. There's a difference between there being only one photo of a happy person (which looks like it may be a selfie), and there being several. There's a difference between an image taken at a club, and one taken in a bedroom, as the AI-generated image appears to be – especially since Jennifer Pan is alleged to have conspired with an ex-boyfriend to have committed the crime. Was he the one who took the picture?

The Growing Use of AI Is Worrying

These may seem like extremely minor concerns, but imagine these questions multiplied by thousands if using AI images in this way becomes common. The last thing worth considering is that there's still a lot we don't understand about how image-generating AI even works. The technology is often referred to as a "black box," because even its creators have very little understanding of what goes on inside it. We have created hardware and software that can take billions of images and recognize enough patterns to re-approximate them on command, and it can fine-tune itself based on human feedback. Though we call it "artificial intelligence," it actually works nothing like a human mind. The image data that AI trains on was often made available by the public on social media sites like Friendster and MySpace. Could an AI, asked to fill a bedroom wall with "typical photographs," generate a picture of you?

What we do know is that the temptation to use this software is strong. Imagine using AI in a documentary about a killer who used Photoshop to forge a fake life for herself, and ignoring the irony! It is socially discouraged to use unlabeled AI in any form. But that might not be enough to keep these images from bleeding into our media, gradually eroding our ability to know what's real.

What Jennifer Did is available to stream on Netflix.

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