05/06/2026
🖼️ Is it human art or artificial generation?
As Generative AI gets more advanced, it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference between real photos and AI-created images at a first glance. While these tools can create stunning visuals, they often leave behind subtle clues—telltale artifacts that reveal their digital origin.
To be truly media literate, we have to look past the overall image and inspect the details.
Here are three quick checks to help you spot AI-generated content:
👀 1. Examine the Eyes
AI struggles to get reflections and pupil shapes just right. Real eyes are symmetrical, have matched light reflections, and have round pupils. AI eyes may look glossy, mismatched, or have irregular shapes.
📜 2. Inspect the Text
This is often the easiest flaw to spot. AI is not reading or writing; it is predicting patterns. Look for text on signs, books, or background objects. In AI images, letters are often scrambled, gibberish, or completely illegible (look closely at the tavern sign in the magnifier!).
🌫️ 3. Check the Backgrounds
While the foreground subject might look perfect, backgrounds often lack coherence. Check for textures that don’t make sense, inconsistent blurs, or structures (like windows or bricks) that suddenly vanish or warp.
Before you trust or share an image, take a moment to look closer. Be media literate!
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