I spy, with my little eye, a photo that was faked by an AI image generator! Can you spot the clues?
FB is turning into a parade of fake AI images churned out by click-farming pages. More misinformation is on the way. Learn some tricks for spotting AI photos!
A good way to find out whether a piece of art is AI is to search for logical errors. Human artists add everything with a purpose even if they might lack the skill for it, but AI doesn't understand what it's doing since it's only copying what it sees (note: you can see a similar effect when people trace art, but don't understand what it is they're tracing)
An artist might make a logical error or two just because art has many details that you need to keep track of over the course of a few days, but most of the picture has consistency. A major point is to search for as many inconsistencies as possible because they all add up to prove that the art is AI
But enough of that, allow me to give you a visual example using this AI picture of Hatsune Miku:
As with all AI art, it looks fine at a glance which is why you have to look deeper to find your proof
Starting out with the most well known sign of AI use: the hands
The first hand is a mangled mess, while the second one has an extra long finger that turns into hair. This alone can prove that the art is AI (though do be cautious, artists sometimes miscount fingers in their art! If there are more or less than 5 fingers but they all look real, look for other signs in the art before accusing of AI)
Another thing to keep in mind is that AI is terrible at continuation. That is to say, if there is something intersecting where an object goes, it will not understand that the object behind it is the same one. An example in this picture would be the pigtail that's separated by the arm:
Note how thin the pigtail is at the top, but the bottom comes out much thicker as if she grew extra hair. This effect is much more obvious in other pictures so you may call this nitpicking, but the point is to show you methods & what to look for
Another example would be the legs and the skirt:
The leg is coming from in front of the skirt??
One more way to easily tell AI apart is the eyes, as the eyes can be heavily stylized, but AI has troubles keeping them looking consistent with each other:
Miku's left eye is noticeably lighter and more blue (no, it's not the shading when her entire face is supposedly under the same shadow), the edge of the iris is misshapen, there are many random shapes in the eyes. The pupil is probably supposed to be the big lighter circle in the middle
Miku's right eye has less shapes in it and the pupil seems to be a tiny light dot in the middle?
The highlights in the eyes are also done differently and inconsistently. Usually even if the eyes are drawn quite different, the highlights are what makes them come together, even in anime where the focus is on animation & not so much consistency
These are the main inconsistencies to look out for in any art, but even that might not be enough at times, especially if a person is drawing over AI art to try and fix mistakes. Unfortunately, I have seen it before and it is something to look out for, so let's quickly point out any other logical mistakes in this Hatsune Miku picture so you have a better understanding of what to look out for:
The shape of this object is square, but there's a weird angle at the top
2. The pink hood is not attached to anything on one side. Additionally, her hair blends into the hoodie string
3. Bottom hair strand isn't attached to the rest of the hair (the hair is coming from the top right, yet it ends there. Unless a hair strand did a 180 turn behind Miku, it has no purpose looking like that)
4. The pink hoodie has a single button hole in the middle of one side, and one at the bottom of the other side. This is also odd considering it's supposed to be a hoodie, which doesn't usually have buttons. Additionally, I'm sure the text of the shirt is messed up and is unreadable in any language
5. Inconsistent hoodie colors, the left side has a white bottom while the right side has a pink edge. Also it splits into two on the right side for some reason. Also also, the left side has something that looks like a messed up pocket with pink rocks attached to it, which doesn't make sense when the bottom of the hoodie has a different type of pocket.
6. The background. Note the railing starts right above the yellow on the left side, in the middle of the bridge. But then suddenly is at the far edge of the bridge on the right side with the white road between the two
Lastly for good measure, take a look at the whole picture again and look at how inconsistent the shading is:
The lighting can be split into two parts, where the light comes from the top of the character & where the light comes from the right side
Light comes from the top:
Top of the hair
Raised arm
Top of the hoodie & shirt
Skirt
Light comes from the right side:
Pigtails
Bottom of the jacket
Fluffy collar
Face
You can't justify it by saying "it's coming from the top right" because that's not how the shading would work in that situation. If it was, the lowered arm wouldn't have such a bright light since the light wouldn't be able to reach it. Note that the raised arm also doesn't cast a shadow over the chest
A lot of these things are something you understand through experience in art, so it's okay if you struggle to see what I described here. After all, I'm here to help so that I can use my artistic experience to better identify AI art as well as help you learn the signs of it
AI art is getting harder to spot which can trick you into supporting so-called 'AI artists'
To avoid that, you can anonymously send any suspicious looking art and/or accounts here and I'll analyze the artwork to see if I spot any traces of AI use. Hopefully over time we can all learn to tell AI art easier so we don't fall victim to its lies
Keep in mind that at the end of the day I'm just one person doing my best. I'm an artist who's analyzed plenty of AI art so I've gotten a hang of telling AI art apart, but I can make mistakes especially as they try to cover their tracks more and more
