I just looked for ai slop on the internet and some videos are very realistic, so realistic it makes me doubt my ability to discern what’s real from what’s created to play with my emotions and generate money for the creator or advance an agenda.
I’m in my 40s. Video sites are full of what I assume overconfident people younger than me with comments like how boomers would believe any of these videos. I’m not that old myself yet but this stuff is scary. It can be used to denigrate a politician, to demonize or ridicule minorities, to share misinformation, to make porn using the face of somebody who rejected a disgruntled man…
It’s also very sad society actually wants this. It shows lots of people are actually very gullible and stupid.
A better question would be, how do I avoid being gullible with images and video so realistic? Because the more technology advances the worse it’s going to get.
The same way you know if there’s the Fae.
- Count the fingers
- Look for irregularities
- See where the glamour shimmers
- Ask them for their name
GenAI doesn’t have problems with fingers anymore, as far as I know.
Checking the channel that uploaded can also give a clue. A lot of the slop channels just flood variations of the same thing. They just post a thousand generated videos of different dog doing the exact same thing or “people” having the exact same fight etc.
Sorting videos by oldest can help too, if their first video predates AI it’s probably a decent indicator the channel is real
I wouldn’t bother learning, whatever you learn today could be out of date in a year and could overall be impossible in less than 5 years. historically people would believe whatever title you slap on a youtube video regardless of if the video even tried to demonstrate the claim or not. I’d focus on authoritative and reliable sources and just be an open minded but also vigilant skeptic of claims you have no practical way to validate.
for example they’ll show you something like a video of Latino Americans celebrating with overlay text claim it’s Venezuelans supporting Trump (I’ll assume you don’t know Spanish or there’s no original audio) and it’s a real video but the original video was celebrating a sports game like 10 years ago.
It’s getting harder and harder but some things still seem to work:
- emotional emphasis on the wrong syllables
- dissonance between facial expressions and vocal delivery
- AI writing giveaways (it’s not A it’s B etc.)
- dreamlike / “floaty” motion
- unrealistic “depth of field” (objects don’t blur properly with distance)
- unrealistic lighting / coloring / appears stylized despite the attempted hyperrealism
- object permanence problems / subtle drift in sizes and proportions over time
The last one is the big giveaway but it can be hard to spot. Look for things going out of frame or going behind other objects. Do they come back when they should? Have they changed?
For example: there are three people in the background and a bus drives by, obscuring them completely. Are they still there when the bus moves on?
I’ll add another one: multiple vanishing points. As models will pull different parts of images from different sources, perspective can be inconsistent across the image.
Perfect framing is often a giveaway. Most people’s phone footage wobbles and moves around. Background object permanence is another thing to look out for
The Corridor Crew have done a couple of videos where they explain a lot of the things to look for and the reason AI finds it hard. Some examples:
Was about to recommend Corridor’s videos! They are really comprehensive and easy to follow.
A better question would be, how do I avoid being gullible with images and video so realistic?
Honestly, we’re quickly moving into “assume AI unless proven otherwise” territory.
That guys voice.
Plus, minor grammatical errors. eg. “Has increased the Tens of times”
Also, Bruce Lee having a fight.
I don’t understand why an AI would make grammatical errors. Isn’t that the one thing they’re supposed to be good at?
That woman’s voice too.
And it’s not just Bruce Lee having a fight.
It’s angry conceited Martial Arts fighter picks random person out of a crowd for a demonstration,
who happened to be none other than calm collected Bruce Lee, yet no one knew who he was,
with 4k grayscale picture quality and at all angles of the dojo, including on individual audience members themselves, plus repetitive ‘damaged film’ effects for 20th century authenticity.
They always look a bit shiny/glossy
