Netflix: Documentary at the Center of the Artificial Intelligence Controversy

If you are a Netflix subscriber and fan true crimes, then you’ve most likely jumped on the streaming giant’s latest documentary: Jennifer’s Truth. This American production returns to the novel that shook Canada in 2010.

It begins with a call to 911: Jennifer Penny, a 28-year-old woman on the line, screams into the phone that her parents have just been shot. His mother died instantly at the family home, but his father was rushed to the emergency room and then put into an induced coma.

As for Jennifer, she quickly becomes the focus of a serious criminal case. It seems that this shy and weak woman is not telling the police everything…

To illustrate her documentary and show all the ambivalence of the character, director Jenny Popplewell uses archival images and testimonies. And there is an illustration that caused many subscribers to react.

Disagreement photo

We’re about 30 minutes into the documentary. One of Jennifer’s former classmates describes her friend as a teenager “Bubbly, happy, confident and sincere”.

The documentary then uses a photo of a young girl to illustrate its point. We see her, smiling, with both hands up, posing for a photo. Problem? If we take a closer look at the picture, we will realize that something is wrong, for example This article explains it very well.

Distorted hands (Jennifer only has two fingers on her left), decor that isn’t right, weird lighting… there’s no doubt: this image was processed by artificial intelligence.

Image manipulation that looks believable if Netflix only had access to one illustrative photo and all the others were retouched. In the second photo, Jennifer can be seen against a black background, with only one ear. Which explains why she always wears the same red dress…

But for a documentary that emphasizes truth and should not distort or manipulate, this use of artificial intelligence raises questions. Especially since Jennifer Penn’s case is still going on on the other side of the Atlantic, after she experienced a twist in 2023.

Several US media outlets contacted Netflix and declined to respond to requests for…