AI-generated images are popping up everywhere, and it's becoming harder to distinguish them from real photos now. To avoid being a victim of deepfakes and misinformation campaigns, you should know what to look out for when an image appears to be created by AI.
1. Count the Fingers
As relatively advanced as AI is at present, it still can't get fingers right somehow. A lot of the AI-generated images that have people or animals in them sometimes have obvious distortions, provided that you know where to look.
In some circumstances, there are extra or missing fingers. There are also times when they're disfigured or disproportionate, making them look weird or downright terrifying. In the photo above, you may notice that the person's hands seem to have glitched into the steering wheel.
2. Smooth Render
If you ask an AI tool to generate an image of a person, they do so successfully, but if you put it side by side with raw photos, you'll notice that the render is far too smooth, almost cartoonish sometimes.
In a simpler description, the subject would sometimes look like they were made of clay or wax because of the texture. Even pictures touched up by Photoshop still show shadows where they're supposed to be, as well as some blemishes.
3. Read the Texts
Depending on the prompt, the AI tool sometimes has to add text to the image. For instance, asking it to generate an image of a newspaper will require it to add elements like headlines and even an entire article.
More often than not, the AI image generator will not be able to put legible texts at all, or it will make up characters and symbols to fill the space. In the given example, you can see there are a couple of letters you'll still recognize, but the rest is just gibberish.
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4. Background Distortions
The images that are generated by AI tend to focus on the subject. If you ask it to create "a pug wearing a crown in the middle of a library," for instance, the pug will look as realistic as it can be, but the library will have all sorts of errors that can easily be spotted.
In the image above, for example, one of the statue's legs has blended into the chair while the other is non-existent. The candle also has a metallic object on top of it where a wick should be. Let's not forget the miniature pug on the right, looking like it had a very rough day.
5. It Gets Accessories Wrong
If you ask the AI image generator to create an image of headphones, it will probably do so with very little to no mistakes. However, asking it to create an entire computer setup could lead to it making a few mistakes, particularly misshapen or wacky accessories.
At first glance, this seems like a normal enough PC setup with a lot of RGB lighting, but if you look closely, you'll notice that the keys on the keyboard are out of sorts. The headphones also have an angled headband instead of the normal arched build.
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