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Sorry to burst your bubble, but if you’re hoping for a foolproof guide on spotting AI-generated videos, you won’t find it here. Say goodbye to the days of Will Smith awkwardly slurping spaghetti, because AI video creators are stepping up their game. The latest tools can whip up realistic videos with just a few clicks, making it harder to separate fact from fiction.
AI-generated videos are still in their early stages compared to AI-generated text, images, and audio. Nailing down all the details requires top-notch data, which can be a tough nut to crack. But fear not, the future of AI-generated videos is bright, according to Siwei Lyu, a computer science and engineering professor at University at Buffalo SUNY.
The key to spotting AI-generated videos lies in your AI literacy skills. Recognizing that what you’re witnessing could be the work of AI is crucial, rather than relying on specific cues. As Lyu, director of UB’s Media Forensic Lab, puts it, understanding the growth of AI technologies is paramount.
### The artifacts may change, but good judgment remains.
But relying too much on certain cues to verify whether a video is AI-generated could get you into trouble. Lyu’s 2018 paper about detecting AI-generated videos because the subjects didn’t blink properly was widely publicized in the AI community. As a result, people started looking for eye-blinking defects, but as the technology progressed, so did more natural blinks. “People started to think if there’s a good eye blinking, it must not be a deepfake and that’s the danger,” said Lyu. “We actually want to raise awareness but not latch on particular artifacts, because the artifacts are going to be amended.”
AI-Generated Content: How to Spot and Verify
Building the awareness that something might be AI-generated will “trigger a whole sequence of action,” said Lyu. “Check, who’s sharing this? Is this person reliable? Are there any other sources correlating on the same story, and has this been verified by some other means? I think those are the things the most effective counter measures for deepfakes.”
For Farid, identifying AI-generated videos and misleading deepfakes starts with where you source your information. Take the AI-generated images that circulated on social media in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene and Hurricane Milton. Most of them were pretty obviously fake, but they still had an emotional effect on people. “Even when these things are not very good, it doesn’t mean that they don’t penetrate, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t sort of impact the way people absorb information,” he said.
Be cautious about getting your news from social media. “If the image feels like clickbait, it is clickbait,” said Farid before adding it all comes down to media literacy. Think about who posted the video and why it was created. “You can’t just look at something on Twitter and being like, ‘Oh, that must be true, let me share it.’”
How AI Companies Label AI-Generated Videos
Some AI companies, like Google and OpenAI, have come up with ways to indicate when a video is generated by AI. For instance, Google embeds an invisible watermark called SynthID in all videos created by Veo. In response to concerns raised by Veo 3, Google also added a visible watermark to clearly label content as AI-generated.
Invisible Watermarks vs. Visible Watermarks
Other companies, such as OpenAI and Adobe, use invisible watermarks based on a standard developed by the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). While visible watermarks can be easily removed and may not make a difference in how content is perceived, invisible watermarks are harder to tamper with and provide a more secure way to track the origin of content.
Although standards like C2PA are a step in the right direction, the responsibility still lies with companies to adhere to them voluntarily. It remains to be seen whether regulators will enforce these standards in the future. In the meantime, it’s important for consumers to exercise sound judgement and improve their media literacy skills.
Topics
Artificial Intelligence
