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.
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.
Not bad. I’d appreciate a much longer time limit. Got really rushed at the end. But this was crazy hard on my phone, I was straight guessing most of the time. I think I could be a little better with more time on a desktop screen.
Another idea would be games that were all pictures of a single category- like 10 AI and 10 real pictures of basketballs, or food on plates, etc.
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.
And again, how is "AI or human" relevant to discussing? Given the potential of an indistinguishable discussion (which will eventually be the case). Although also eventually it's AI that will consistently provide the superior discussion experience, then... what? Those against AI actively seek out inferior experiences? Should be interesting.
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..
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
It would be cool if they published stats on how well people do on average, and how that changes over time and with different models. I feel like in a few years we'll either all be much better at this or completely desensitized, and sadly I'm guessing we're trending towards the latter.
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.
12/17. Due to the speed, I felt like I was just randomly guessing, but 70% correct seems better than random guessing. I did suspect some things.
How mundane the AI images were felt like a means to trick people. It doesn’t seem like most people making AI images and posting them are generating still life images of everyday life. What would be the point?
I'm sure it's not the intended way to play but guessing randomly seems to have a net positive score, so getting a high score is as simple as spamming the buttons as fast as you can. I got 10k on mobile through this strategy.
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.
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.
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.
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[ 0.26 ms ] story [ 30.3 ms ] threadDid I create the image myself?
Yes: Not AI
No: AI
> 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?
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-...
Another idea would be games that were all pictures of a single category- like 10 AI and 10 real pictures of basketballs, or food on plates, etc.
The fact that the suck machine works isn't something to be proud of.
In what way?
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.
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.
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.
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.
- 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.
How mundane the AI images were felt like a means to trick people. It doesn’t seem like most people making AI images and posting them are generating still life images of everyday life. What would be the point?
2,050 points Best streak: 9 in a row
Hard af.
Not all image models (or sampler settings) do this, but with gpt it's very obvious.
With this in mind, I misjudged 3 images on the default game.
holy shit