Want to Know if a Photograph Was Made by Artificial Intelligence? Listen to These Experts

How much of the world is fake? And how much of the world is real?

Awe and fear of AI now dominate most regions of the world. Now, more than ever, humans are relying on this product of technology because of its almost infinite “intelligence.”

Photo: YouTube/Making the Photo

ChatGPT is used by millions of people, from students to professionals. This chatbot has made their “education” and work so much easier. But there is also a growing concern that AI is taking over many kinds of jobs, displacing people and gravely affecting the economy.

Also, students are relying on AI so heavily that they miss the true learning process. Moreover, there’s risk in the outdated knowledge of these chatbots that affects the accuracy of the information they provide.

There’s also another concern that many people have raised: AI-generated images that are produced to fool the public. It seems that fake news and misinformation are not enough; many images are being circulated to deceive the world.

But, according to Siwei Lyu, professor of computer science and engineering at the University at Buffalo, trusting our natural instincts can help us to identify an AI-generated image. It takes our brain only 13 milliseconds to process an image; that’s why we need to take a bit more time to look more closely at it to avoid being deceived.

Photo: YouTube/Making the Photo

“Next time we see something interesting or funny, hopefully we’ll pause a little bit and think about it. If we suspect anything that’s fishy, we don’t retweet immediately — so we stop the problem at the door instead of being part of the problem,” said Lyu.

Currently, AI-generated images show imperfections that our eyes can still catch. AI is not good at the physics of light and gravity; that’s why you can usually observe anomalies in the eyes, hands, hair strands, and other details that AI produces.

According to National Geographic, “Humans almost always have circular pupils, but AI often produces strangely shaped shadows in the center of the eye. Light reflecting off the eyes should also be in the same place on each eye, something that current AI struggles with. Light and shadows in general are tricky for AI to reproduce. Especially if there’s a window or reflective surface in the image, there may be light or shadow where there isn’t supposed to be. This is part of a larger problem AI has with laws of physics, like gravity.”

Photo: YouTube/Making the Photo

But, of course, we cannot rely completely on our visual system, as expressed by Hany Farid, a professor at University of California, Berkeley. The best way to prevent being fooled is to be “to be generally suspicious of media, to question its sourcing, and double-check its veracity.”

Experts are also inventing advanced counter-measure programs to detect computer-generated images to protect what’s “real and precious” in our world. The truth. Many unscrupulous minds are using AI technology to scam, and we need human heroes to step up to them with all their might, heart, and mind, despite the weight of the challenge.

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