The Pope Coat Was Helpful, Actually

We need more innocuous lessons in how to recognize AI images

The image created by Midjourney, an AI program

To judge by the general reaction to it, the Pope Coat — the AI-generated image of the Pope Francis wearing a huge designer white puffer coat that went viral last week — was yet another sign of the looming information apocalypse. “The images fooled scores of users, in one of the first instances of…