Which came first? The AI image could be a bad render of the original picture with low quality.

There’s issues with models pushing back source material with minor modifications, which suggest they were trained on some copyrighted material. It seems like it could be the case here. Or, as you suggest, it’s a lowering of the AI quality to add a more realistic appearance.

12ft.io/nytimes.com/…/ai-image-generators-openai-microsof…