AI-generated content is slowly taking over the internet these days. There is no doubt AI has made content generation a much easier and more efficient thing at the current time. Talk about generating blogs, images, or even videos; with the help of AI tools, we can generate our own content in just a matter of time. What’s more interesting is the fact that AI is getting better day by day. And with all the enhancements, it is quite difficult to distinguish between AI-generated and human-made content.
Considering the AI image generators, thanks to renowned tools such as Midjourney and DALL-E 2, we can bring our imagination to life. However, have you ever imagined if you were to detect an AI or human-generated image, how would you do it? Fortunately, we have quite a few ways to detect AI-generated images. In this article, we will examine why detecting AI-generated content is important and how you would do it.
Tips to Identify AI-Generated Images
With the alarming rate of the usage of AI-generated images in different fields, it is becoming popular with time. However, there were also instances where people used AI-generated content to spread false conspiracies in the real world. And no doubt, if fallen into the wrong hands, people could further weaponize it and use it for further worse motives. Therefore, it becomes necessary for a way to find out if one is an AI-generated image or not.
The current image generator tools have certain flaws that can help us distinguish between an AI and a human-generated image. Besides, today we also have access to AI-generated content detectors that can be used for the purpose. Here we have shared some of the working ways to detect an AI-generated image.
1. Look for Watermarks
Some of the AI image generators leave a watermark on the generated images. For instance, if you use the DALL-E 2 for generating images, you will notice a series of tiny color box on giving a close lookes. DALL-E prints these color boxes on each image, indicating it as a watermark of the platform itself.
The good thing, however, is you can easily remove this watermark through some workaround. And it won’t even intervene with the Terms and Conditions of the platform. But again, if you are using Midjourney to generate your images, in that case, you won’t find any watermark on the images. So, this trick isn’t going to work for all image generators.
2. Spot Out Odd Details
Although AI image generators are trained on huge datasets of human artworks and are already generating award-winning images, they are still far away from the accuracy of man-made art. Looking at the images from a distance, they seem to be perfect. However, as you notice closely, you might come across a lot of oddities that are uncertain to have in man-made art.
There are many small details on which AI still has a lot to progress. For example: Consider this 3D-rendered art of a woman playing piano. On looking from a distance, everything seems to be perfect.
However, when look closelylook, you will notice many distortions and anomalies near the hand playing the piano and her face. Such odds are not expected from a man-made art.
Similarly, even if you are creating a photorealistic image, you might find a lot of such anomalies in the ima, which clearly indicate it is an AI-generated image. For instance, consider the following image.
At first look, it might almost deceive anyone into believing it’s a real photo of a woman. However, on observing closely, you will see the color distortion around the second eye and the unnatural skin texture near the neck. Besides, there are a few more anomalies in this image. So, let us know what more could you see that doesn’t feel authentic about this image.
3. Verify using a GAN Detector
Finally, we have a complete solution to help you detect AI-generated images. GAN detector is an application that basically identifies if an image is AI-generated or human. Since the tests on this application have given a mixture of results, it is not yet completely reliable. In certain cases, the application did a great job identifying AI-generated images, while in others, it an oppositesite answer.
In fact, there are no such detection apps that can be fully trusted as of now. All such available services have had rough scores when it comes to detecting AI-generated images. So, the best way to identify is to use multiple ways together to come closer to the answer. Meaning when you have an image to detect, try identifying it on other tools as well apart from GAN.
There are many such AI image detection services like Hugging Face, Illuminati, etc. So, along with GAN, you can consider cross-checking the result on these platforms as well. Additionally, do not forget the previous methods either. Manually look for watermarks in the image or any kind of oddity that might be concerning to you.
Final Words
Since Ai-based image generators are still in their initial stage, developers are more concerned with making these models more accurate rather than finding solutions to identify AI-generated content. Yet, we have a few solutions to check for AI-generated images. Although these detection applications cannot be trusted blindly, if used with other methods in combination, we might get a clear picture. So, we advise you not to believe in these detection tools simply. Regardless of the answer, always conduct a manual check before reaching your conclusion.