I’m an AI expert and there are four telltale signs to spot a fake photo

AI image generators are creating all sorts of convincing photos making it increasingly hard to spot out fakes.

A viral photo of the Pope wearing a puffer jacket is just one of the many scarily believable AI snaps we’ve seen recently.

While some are fun, others are being used to mislead people.

But the tech isn’t entirely perfect – yet.

An expert from fact-checking charity Full Fact has revealed four of the big telltale signs to look out for.

Fingers and teeth

AI sometimes struggles to get the right amount of fingers.

Often this results in too many digits.

This can especially be the case when a person is holding something.

The same has been seen with people’s teeth too.

Feature inconsistencies

Back to the Pope AI fake photo, a couple of odd things stood out.

Firstly, he appears to be holding a takeaway coffee cup by the lid, which seems a bit off.

And another giveaway is the crucifix he’s wearing, which appears to be missing a chain.

The gloss or sheen look

Experts have noticed that AI-generated images tend to have a certain gloss or sheen to them.

It’s almost like an Instagram filter has been applied to them, giving a bit of a cartoon-ish feel at times.

Weird text

AI seems to struggle with generating text on some images too, bunching and overlapping letters on top of each other.

As Full Fact notes, text can easily be added after so it’s not a definite sign but one to look for.

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