Humans can no longer reliably tell the difference between a real human face and an image of a face generated by artificial intelligence, according to a pair of researchers.
In one part of the study – published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA – humans identified fake images on just 48.2 per cent of occasions.
In another part of the study, participants were given some training and feedback to help them spot the fakes. While that cohort did spot real humans 59 per cent of the time, their results plateaued at that point.
Artificial Intelligence has advanced at a furious pace in recent years. The technology has enabled many advances that can hopefully one day improve our life, but there is a need to be careful on how this technology is implemented. A good example of this dilemma is the use of AI to generate images and videos that to the naked eye look legitimate. This has far reaching consequences for our society – how do we trust what we see on videos or pictures is actually real and have not been doctored? According to this study, AI was able to fool humans between 41-52% of the time. As AI continues to mature, these results will only get better or worse depending on your perspective. A good rule of thumb is to not be too naive about what you see in pictures and videos – keeping an open mind will be even more essential.
