Real or deepfake? Here's how to identify if an image was generated by artificial intelligence

All about Artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been around for many years, but it has only recently gained significant notoriety among the general public. Proof of this was the launch of ChatGPT, which, due to its ease of use and rapid execution of commands, brought to the fore discussions about AI and its implications for society.

Among the features that these softwares have, one of the most famous – and problematic – is the creation of ultra-realistic images, because they reproduce some human characteristics so well that they can confuse the public. With this in mind, we have separated some information to teach you what Deepfakes are and how to differentiate a real image from one created by artificial intelligence.

What are deepfakes?

Deepfake is a term that originated in the English language and classifies the use of artificial intelligence to modify media (photos and videos) and insert images of real people, but out of context. For example, at the beginning of 2023, an image of Pope Francis was spread across the internet: in it, the pontiff was wearing a white foam coat. See the image below:

In this way, people with knowledge of AI can insert someone's face and body into an image or video that has no relation to the original photo to which their face/body belongs; as happened with Pope Francis, who never left the Vatican dressed in the way the image shows.

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How to identify if an image was generated by artificial intelligence

Nowadays, AI image generators are so sophisticated that they can create ultra-realistic media, capable of fooling a worrying portion of the world's population. Despite this, there are some techniques you can apply to identify whether an image was generated by AI or not. Check them out:

• Count your fingers: Artificial intelligence still has a big problem generating the right number of fingers on a person's hands. However, this difficulty becomes the first indication that an image was generated by AI: if there are six or more fingers on the hands of the people in the photo, it is likely that everything was done by AI;
• Look for disconnected words: AI doesn’t usually bother to spell the names of objects correctly; often, the words and letters that appear don’t exist. If the image of a bus was generated by AI, for example, it’s likely that the letters that should appear on the vehicle’s display form disconnected words;
• Lack of texture: Skin is always covered in texture, shadows, and sometimes even obvious imperfections (pimples, blemishes, wrinkles, scars, etc.). Creating an AI-generated image with so much detail is extremely difficult, so most of these images end up looking weird, as if they were more like a painting than a photo of the real thing. So if you see a photo where there are people and objects (cars, buildings, streetlights) without proper texture, then it is most likely an AI-generated image.

There are several other details that denote the fact that an image was created by AI, such as people larger than cars, earrings that are very different from each other, strangely folded clothes, etc.

We also recommend that you use image scanning sites: they analyze the pixels of the photo and the characteristics of the media, and provide the probability of the image being real or not. They can be very useful, especially when you come across an ultra-realistic image.