AI-generated images of white people were more believable than photos. And it's dangerous

November 15, 11:50 Share:

People don't always know how to distinguish a generated image from a photo (Photo: pexels)

A new study by researchers from Australia, the UK and the Netherlands found that images of white faces generated by artificial intelligence ( AI) seem more real than photos.

The team's experiments involved showing half of 100 images of white AI faces and 100 real photos of white people to white adult participants. The results showed that 66% of the AI images were rated as human, compared to 51% of real human images.

Read also:
Forecast in a minute. AI has been taught to predict weather more effectively than traditional systems

The researchers emphasized that such findings could have serious implications, especially in areas related to personal safety.. Given the potential for deception by digital scammers, including identity theft, they are calling for a closer look at photos, especially those that may be generated by AI.

However, the researchers noted that these results only apply to white faces because the algorithm trained to generate the AI images primarily used photos of white people. This highlights the importance of diversity in training data to create more comprehensive artificial intelligences in the future.

It is also worth noting that the second stage of the experiment revealed the key factors influencing the misconception: greater facial proportionality, recognition and less memorability.

While people can't seem to reliably distinguish AI faces from real ones, researchers have created a machine learning system that does the job with 94% accuracy.

Read about the price of the new NV number, what you can get here