🔎 Real deal or cheap knockoff? You find a great dress, pair of shoes, wallet or whatever online. Is it a nicely made piece or something you could buy in bulk on Alibaba? One easy way to check: Do a reverse image search. Upload a saved pic here on Google Images and see if you can spot the exact product elsewhere.
How to spot an AI-generated image: Tips, tricks and pro tools
Forget trying to spot if a pic of a model was photoshopped. (It was.) Now we can’t even trust if the person we see in a photo or video is real.
Fear not, I’m here to help you navigate the pixelated wilderness. Let’s look at the seven telltale signs an image is AI-generated.
7 signs that should make you say ‘Hmmm’
- Perfect symmetry: To the point that you could fold an image in half and it would be perfectly mirrored on both sides. Landscape photos and close-up shots are prime candidates. Real people aren’t perfectly symmetrical.
- Distortion: There’s usually a little wonkiness or distortion hiding in an AI image. Look at the faces in a crowd; you’ll likely find someone who looks like they went for a swim in an oil painting.
- Unusual proportions: Objects might seem too big or small, like cars as tall as homes or doorways too tiny for anyone to squeeze through.
- Shadows and light: Real-world photos play nice with the laws of physics, but AI? Not so much. Shadows tend to go in all directions.
- Unnatural textures: AI has a way of making textures appear suspiciously flawless (and we’re not talking about your skin with that Instagram filter). Images might appear too smooth, with no natural textures or color variations. On the flip side, it can have the opposite effect; hyper-realistic portraits with zoom-worthy wrinkles, pores and blemishes are also a thing.
- Watermarks: Most free AI image generators stick watermarks onto their creations. You’ll usually find them in the bottom left or right corners in the form of a logo or text pointing to the source site or app.
- Weirdness: Look for oddities like strangely shaped features, too many fingers or accessories that don’t match. It’s always the small things!
Tools you can use
If you’re still feeling iffy about an image’s origin, I’ll leave you with a few AI-detection tools that caught my eye. They’re also free. Score!
- AI or Not: Simply drag and drop, upload, or paste an image URL into the search bar, and AI or Not will tell you if it’s legit.
- Maybe’s AI Art Detector: Pretty much the same as AI or Not, but it will give you the AI verdict in percentages (e.g., “20% human and 80% artificial”).
Oh, and don’t forget about our old friend, Google’s reverse image search. If Google returns the same image from credible sources, chances are it’s real. But if it points you to an AI site, you might want to sound the alarms. Here’s how to check on iPhone and Android.
✅ I’ve got one more trick only the pros know: Inspect the metadata embedded in the image itself. I’ll walk you through it.
😂 In every koi pond of four or more, at least one koi is always fake. You’ve got koi A, koi B, koi C and then the D koi. (That was so bad, it was good!)
Don’t get left behind – Stay tech ahead
Award-winning host Kim Komando is your secret weapon for navigating tech.
- National radio show: Find your local station or listen to the podcast
- Daily newsletter: Join 575,000 people who read The Current (free!)
- Watch: On Kim’s YouTube channel
- Podcast: “Kim Komando Today” – Listen wherever you get podcasts
How to dig up dirt about yourself online
You know by now you should keep the private things in life off the internet. Your middle name, job, city, pet’s name, the school you went to, your spouse’s name, the ages of your kids, your shoe size — the details a scammer or hacker would love to have.
🎖️ He’s not that into you: Officer Kagan Dunlap says his wife constantly gets messages accusing him of cheating on her. The good-looking Marine isn’t unfaithful. Romance scammers have been using his photos since 2015 to woo women around the world, and some victims have lost thousands of dollars to their tricks. Pro tip: Do a reverse image search on anyone who claims to “love” you but you haven’t seen them IRL.
AI fakes are everywhere – How to spot them
Tom Hanks isn’t trying to sell you a dental plan. YouTuber MrBeast won’t give you an iPhone 15. CBS News host Gayle King isn’t recommending a weight-loss product.
I knew this stage of AI tomfoolery was coming, but it’s still surprising how fast it’s happening. Let’s take a closer look at how free and cheap tools fuel fraud — and the signs to watch for.
Signs your new boyfriend or girlfriend is not who they say they are
Scammers are waiting around every corner, and special occasions such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas and Black Friday are usually when they kick their activities into high gear. Unfortunately, this is the perfect time of year for romance scams.
Speaking of Temu and Shein: Their cheap wares are for sale on Etsy, a site meant for vintage and handmade goods. Sellers are breaking the rules by listing mass-produced items, sometimes at 10 times the original price. Don’t get duped: Do a reverse image search to see if the same product pops up elsewhere.
A quick tech trick that could save you from falling for a costly scam
Seeing is believing. Sometimes, though, crooks may be able to use legitimate images to rip you off. Tap or click here for six secrets to spot fake news or scams.
What if we told you that you could keep yourself out of trouble with one of the most valuable and intuitive Google tools? Reverse Image Search may be your best friend in this regard, and we encourage you to utilize it to the fullest possible advantage.
This face search engine anyone can use is amazingly accurate
Facial recognition software, previously only used in science fiction, is now an everyday part of our lives. We use it to unlock our phones, verify our identities online and even get through the airport faster.
Though useful, this tech can be utilized without your permission, as seen in a recent $650 million class-action lawsuit against Facebook. The social network used facial recognition to suggest photo tags, which broke a privacy law. Tap or click here to see if you can expect a settlement check in the mail.