In his Nov. 1 op-ed, “Google’s Pixel removes reality from photography,” Matt Bai decried a recent Google ad campaign that exuberantly markets the newest Pixel phone’s ability to alter reality in photos within seconds. Though Mr. Bai’s concerns over deepfakes and truth in general are valid and shared by many, the source of his concerns might be misplaced.

Altering truth in photographs is nearly as old as photography itself, from Alexander Gardner’s staged Civil War photos to Soviet erasures of political adversaries to Jerry Uelsmann’s reality-bending composites. For years, photo editing programs such as Adobe Photoshop have used artificial intelligence to allow photographers and graphic designers the ability to alter digital photos completely. Google merely took that technology and made it easier to use and more ubiquitous for consumers, the same way that the Kodak Brownie made photography accessible to everyone at the start of the 20th century.

More concerning than the Google Pixel’s AI editing prowess is AI’s ability to generate images out of whole cloth. Soon, AI will possess the ability to generate not only images but also videos of anyone. What happens to our judicial system and to our relationships with others if the technology becomes so advanced that authorities can no longer distinguish whether an incriminating image or video is fake? Google didn’t let the spurious-reality genie out of the box, but now that altered images are more prominent in culture, we need to work on solutions to contain their possible damage before they wreak havoc on society.

Art Vidrine, Hyattsville

The writer is an associate professor of art at Bowie State University.