What are the issues judged most important by New Zealanders – and which parties do we think are best equipped to deal with them?
Across political debate, headlines and anecdata, crime has moved to the foreground over the last 18 months. That is reflected in a new Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor, which shows law and order placed second in a ranking of the issues rated most important by New Zealanders.
Rewind to February last year, and 19% named law and order as one of their three main issues of concern. Since then it has climbed steadily, to 40% in this latest survey (see the dotted line, below). That is the fourth consecutive high for the issue since the Ipsos Monitor began in 2018.
Carin Hercock, managing director at Ipsos NZ, noted that it reflects international trends. “Ipsos is seeing concerns about crime increase globally, making it the third-highest issue across all countries we monitor,” she said. “Many countries have seen a spike often attributed to post-Covid truancy and inflation-related poverty levels. In New Zealand it appears to be an issue that is particularly concerning for older New Zealanders, with retirees more than twice as likely to be concerned about crime than those aged under 35 years.”
Which party is considered most capable of managing the issue? A third say National, 23% say Labour, and 11% pick Act.
Crime/law and order as a key issue, and party best equipped to manage it (Ipsos Issues Monitor, June)
Zooming out to the top issues, with about four months to run, cost of living remains top of the pile, though it has dropped a smidgen, from 65% in the last Ipsos Monitor to 63% today.
Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor, June 2023
As for the parties that respondents reckoned were better placed to manage those issues, the news is good for National. Since February, they’ve overtaken Labour on housing (including the price of housing).
Of the top five issues, National is preferred for three. In February, Labour could boast that they were judged better placed to deal with 11 of the 20 most important issues, compared with six for National. No longer. That same comparison gives National 10 of 20, with Labour seven.
Ipsos New Zealand Issues Monitor, Feb v June 2023
More grim news for Labour: the Issues Monitor also measures sentiment on the performance of the government. Respondents are asked to assess the performance over the last six months on a scale from zero to 10, “where 0 means ‘abysmal’ and 10 means ‘outstanding’”.
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The average score in this new survey is 5.0, the lowest since Ardern formed a government after the 2017 election.
Where National led, others are sure to follow. So how can we tell which ads feature real people and which are AI-generated fakes? Design guy Tim Gibson has some tips.
Can we keep up with it all? How many fingers does Vladimir Putin have anyway? Is it OK to use imaginary people in ads endorsing (or attacking) real political parties? And how much should we care if gran thinks that farmer really grew a strawberry the size of a melon?
I’m an illustrator, art director and creative director in the advertising industry, and I have an unhealthy interest in how AI is changing and challenging creative jobs like mine. In this piece I want to show you how to spot fake images – and why it’s going to get a lot harder to spot fakes in the future.
Alongside the words, you’ll find some new bespoke political ads for Election 2023, helping our political parties appeal to new market segments with pretend people who may (or may not) look exactly like us.
Each piece was generated using the Midjourney art generator app, and all used a similar prompt structure: a smiling person (described with demographics like age, apparent gender, race and clothing) giving a thumbs up, in a described setting. And voila: hyper-targetted ads in mere seconds, and practically for free.
The main images were generated using Midjourney 5.1 – the latest version – and prompts were not re-rolled or developed, even if they resulted in apparent errors. Each set of images took approx five minutes of labour.
All this is to say that these images are pretty realistic, but I have also left some obvious ‘tells’ that could have easily been fixed or avoided by someone paid better than an opinion writer, or a social media content creator for the National Party.
Along with the finished product, I’ve included gifs showcasing the incredible advancement in AI image generation, from MidJourney v1 (February 2022) through to v5.1 (May 2023). Apologies in advance for the horror show that awaits.
So, how do you spot an AI-generated image?
The classic tells include faint watermarks, odd-numbered fingers or limbs and giraffe necks. All these still crop up from time to time, but like vestigial tails, they’re being bred out of modern AI models and can be easily avoided with a mere ‘re-roll’ of a prompt. Finding them now is almost retro at this point. I’ve included a few egregious examples in my ads for the trainspotters, even when more ‘perfect’ generations were available to me.
Here’s what is still worth keeping an eye out for:
AI beings have the ability to hold babies and kiss them, while simultaneously handing out fliers to the parents. How do they do that? Extra limbs.
‘Dad drinking’
AI people can’t drink or eat without looking weird. Like when your dad asks for a sip of your soda and then really gums up the lid before re-depositing most of the liquid from his mouth back into your bottle. Like that. Or any of the real photos of John Key interacting with food or drink.
Goblin goat eyes
Strange, possessed eyes out of a horror movie, or like any sheep’s eyes if you care to look at them. Terrifying.
Lad mag skin aka ‘the Maxim Effect’
Remember when soft-core babe magazines for ‘the blokes’ were all the rage, and the photo-retouchers decided human skin was revolting and needed to have all of its pores replaced with a Gaussian blur? Kinda that.
Spectacles, wallets and watches
The subtle interaction between glasses and faces is still proving tricky for AI, as are human hands interacting with wallets. Any watch or clock face is often garbled like a Dali dream.
Buckles and buttons
Buttons appear in weird places on clothing, and buckles magically hold up straps, clothing and objects using bizarre foreign shapes and alien logic.
Doodle details
AI art tends to feature an impressionistic approach to tattoos, written text, graphic design and jewellery. As with impressionist art, it’s an illusion of detail that convinces on a cursory glance but breaks down into nonsense when you look more closely.
Whether or not we should accept AI ‘models’ in our political advertising is still up for debate. What is clear is that these kind of images are going to be an increasing part of our everyday lives, and until media organisations and image creators start digitally tagging their AI-generated images we are going to be left on our own in separating real from fake.
So go forth armed with these AI-spotting tools safe in the knowledge that never again will you be taken in by fake AI imagery – at least until Midjourney releases its next update and likely fixes most of the ‘tells’ listed above.
Which will probably be shortly before our elections in October.
