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Posted by hckr78 3 days ago

Can you tell which images are AI-generated?(slop-sense.labtoagi.com)
111 points | 85 comments
Jowsey 3 days ago|
I hadn't been exposed to the new GPT-Image-2.5 model before this, so didn't have any "tells" to go off of, and found it almost impossible to begin with, but it seems the brain is pretty good at adapting for visual stuff! After 2 rounds, I was able to build up a 16-image combo, answering most within a second or two.

I think the "tell" I ended up with is that almost all of the AI images tend to center around a very obvious main "subject" (a flower, a bike, a wrench, etc) – presumably an inherent artefact of generating from a prompt – with everything else around the subject having a very strange depth to it. The depth, focus, and bokeh around the main subject just never look quite right. If you look at an image and find it has a very strong central subject with a little too much depth separation than expected, there's a good chance it's AI.

I recognise that this method of finding a consistent "tell" will probably not hold for future models, unfortunately. Everything else looks almost perfect at this point.

Retr0id 3 days ago||
It's hard to put into words but the "texture" of GPT-Image-2.5 is just a bit off, like the difference between blue noise and white noise. It's like someone turned up the local contrast just a little too high.
SoylentGreenGPT 2 days ago||
Exactly! The generated images taste different. Also…if you see a perfectly folded towel, it’s probably AI. At least in this set of images.
thayne 3 days ago|||
There are occasionally more obvious tells as well, if you look closely. Some examples that I saw:

- A boat cast a shadow, but the mooring rope didn't

- A bench leg was out of perspective, and didn't touch the ground

- In a pile of logs,the ends were sharpened in an unnatural way[0]

- In several there seems to be an inconsistent contrast between something that looks more dirty, worn, weathered, etc. while the surroundings are more clean and smooth.

Some also feel off in a way that I can't really articulate.

[0]: I think the relationship to the prompt was interesting here, the prompt actually asked for a stack of wooden fence posts, but they were really thick for fence posts, and looked more like firewood with a sharpened point. Interestingly, the prompt included the phrase "without excessive sharpening" which I think meant increasing the sharpness of the image, but I wonder if the AI interpreted as referring to the sharpness of the fence posts.

wildzzz 2 days ago||
The fonts it uses for signs and posters. They often don't match the scene. The posters on a corkboard next to school gymnasium don't look like they were made by students or teachers, most likely amateurs at graphic design, they look professionally made. As for signs, a rustic looking sign isn't going to use helvetica-like typeface, it looks entirely out of place. Again, it looks like a professional made it in 2026, not an amateur merchant 50 years ago.
SoylentGreenGPT 2 days ago||
Exactly, if the words are too easy to read, and clearly not part of a photo used to advertise - then it’s probably AI.
variety8675 3 days ago||
I realized this is only somewhat difficult because of the 10s timer. Most people probably don’t spend more than 10s looking at a picture on social media, excellent project.
hn_throwaway_99 3 days ago|
I thought that at first, but a comment below enlightened me. These types of games are a great way to get free training data.
variety8675 3 days ago||
Great point, in the privacy disclosure they confirm they're collecting the training data.

> Reality Check records visits, round starts and finishes, image views, answers, response times....records are stored in Cloudflare D1

djmips 3 days ago||
Well I guess it's good that I picked AI image for every image...
fwlr 3 days ago||
Every generation prompt has this suffixed:

    The scene should feel incidentally noticed during daily life, not arranged for an advertisement. Natural perspective and subtle everyday wear. No cinematic grading, stock-photo staging, deliberate blur, artificial grain, fake low resolution, extreme background blur, exaggerated HDR or oversharpening. No collage, border, caption or added watermark.

At some point during the process of building up this collection of turd-polishing techniques, the thought should’ve occurred that this is actually a lot of effort to get generations confused for reality. But I suspect this process was being carried out by something that couldn’t have an original thought.
tgsovlerkhgsel 3 days ago||
A troll farm will happily go through that effort then (if it's a high effort part of the campaign rather than just 'flooding the zone') pick the images that are most likely to pass.
sitzkrieg 3 days ago||
freethink is inefficient, schedule this biomass to the remediation chamber
SmasherEpilepti 3 days ago||
> 60 seconds to find out.

> 90s round, 10s per image

> Play 60 seconds

This is confusing. What does "90s round" mean if it's a 60 second game? Is it about the 1990s?

muzani 3 days ago|
"Made with ♥ by Codex"
sph 3 days ago|||
Another pro-AI psyop to show that AI generated content is perfectly fine, created by cunning machines and spread through mindless meat proxies glad to do their bidding.

/s but also not really.

EA-3167 3 days ago|||
Slop all the way down, I guess at least if we’re being charitable. If we’re being less charitable this is trying to gamify getting free training data.
skeledrew 3 days ago||
We all been forced to help train Google's CAPTCHA for years for free, with no benefit. At least here you decide to opt-in or not, and it can potentially help you be more... discerning.
ffsm8 3 days ago||
Now I'm worried Google adds this check to its captcha questions to improve it's own model: tell the ai image
singleshot_ 2 days ago||
Wait, did I miss something? Wasn't that the point the entire time?
charlie90 3 days ago||
Highest I got was 26 in a row. AI seems to love generating "close up" images of a subject. Its like every image has to have an obvious subject (that was in the prompt), and it struggles to make scenes without a clear subject and more chaotic vibe. I notice this a lot with these "AI movies", every single camera shot has an obvious subject that makes them unbearable to watch, they can't just chill out and have a messy scene.
Retr0id 3 days ago||
The time limit did make it quite challenging. I got 1,000 points with a max streak of 8 in a row. On second playthrough I got 3,550 / 12. It seems the AI images all come from a particular area of latent space that's quite easy to recognize once you get dialled in.

So it's more of a "can you detect the GPT Image 2.5 house style", which is an easier problem.

I'd appreciate an untimed mode.

JasonSage 3 days ago|
I agree, there's patterns that aren't hard to recognize if you have some experience.

I got 2400 with 10 in a row on first attempt.

Here's the entire decision matrix:

- Is the color, mood, composition, and level of detail exactly like most Nano Banana Pro images? If yes, AI.

- Is the composition/framing utterly perfect? If yes, AI.

- Is the subject ephemeral or random, like a candid photo or something otherwise unlikely to be photographed? If yes, not AI.

- Final decision, if there's any doubt, go entirely off of how centered the subject is.

I think some of this has more to do with the data set than the methodology. You could easily come up with a bunch of examples to fool me specifically, but alas, they didn't.

karim79 3 days ago||
Neat app but it makes me sad. Also I'm very curious as to where the real photos come from and how we can verify that they are indeed real. The timer thing doesn't really add any value, just stress.
degamad 3 days ago|
The result page has links to the source of each real photo.
orr94 3 days ago||
My most effective strategy is to ask: is there any reason for a human to take this picture?

One AI-generated image was a bedside night stand, with no clutter other than a set of keys on top of a receipt. It looked perfectly real, no glitches or weirdness... other than the idea of someone taking a picture of it.

Not a perfect strategy, though; I thought this one was AI for just that reason: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Potted_plant_1_2018-...

markstos 3 days ago||
But then, some people specialize in taking photos that others would not because they have in mind stock photos, art or something else. They see the world differently.
hn_throwaway_99 3 days ago|||
There are tons of real stock photos with that type of mundane content.
Retr0id 3 days ago||
Stock photos and AI images might as well be in the same category tbh.
trombuance 3 days ago||
[dead]
VCFundedGenYer 3 days ago||
Impossible to do on a phone. Zooming in is misinterpreted as a choice. Fix the game.

Also the time limit is stupid and pointless.

serf 3 days ago||
>Also the time limit is stupid and pointless.

it's harder to tell at a glance rather than pulling out a magnifying glass and counting the fingers of everyone in each group; the time limit pressures the player into making underqualified guesses..

it's not pointless.

sigspec 3 days ago|||
Someone got a low score
ajmurmann 3 days ago|||
I didn't get the zoom bug but zooming in to look at it and zooming out to get back to the buttons to practically the entire 10s
someguynamedq 3 days ago||
The time limit is obviously an important part of this
SoylentGreenGPT 2 days ago|
Highest score is 16,800. Highest streak is 60 in a row.

I just came to HN to see if I won!

Also, I do research on how people perceive images and video. I’ve published a couple papers and did my dissertation on how folks understand moving images.

If you’re the developers of this game I’d love to help you parse this data. B L T P H D at V T dot E D U.

Something we’ve been discussing in our lab is if people can detect the “taste” of AI. Seems if you play this game enough times, you can at least recognize the differences pretty consistently. I’d love to know how rounds of play improves people’s accuracy.

SoylentGreenGPT 2 days ago|
Next time you eat at McDonald’s try to notice the similarities in how things taste. McDonald’s has a flavor profile across all their foods. Everything is a little sweeter and a little saltier but exactly “McDonald’s-like.” My favorite example is the sauces for chicken nuggets. Regardless of the flavor you get, all the sauces have the same consistency and sort of taste like sweet and sour sauce. The honey mustard, the bbq, the buffalo sauce, and even the ranch all taste McDonaldish.

My working theory is that AI generated content also has a tatse. Once you can taste it, you are able to easily discern genuine content (which has random tastes) from generated content (which taste like the model it comes from).

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