i see many bot creators asking for someone to find the source of an image, unknowing that the image is AI generated.

Date: if the image is from mid 2023 or earlier, then it is not AI unless it very obviously is, models weren't good enough before then to make convincing art.

Logic: if the art has extreme logical errors, it is likely AI generated, such as 7 fingers on one hand, or something that doesn't make sense at an instant glance, such as, some weird accessory on a shirt or hair that you cant make sense of, if you have never seen something like it before, it is likely AI generated but DO NOT say that art is AI generated just because you don't understand the buttons on a shirt, look carefully, and figure out that you could likely be wrong.

Vibes: DO NOT rely on this method unless you are really good at figuring it out, almost all AI generated models have a smooth and silky vibe to it, the art can look absolutely real, but if something just looks off about it, it might be AI, i personally can use this method as i know how to tell the difference and know a decent bit about art, but even i do not say with certainty when i only have this method.

Frame Rate: for videos in specific, the best realistic video generator at the current time is Probably Veo 3 by google, it looks very realistic, but has many errors, such as the frame right being way too high for a video that looks 720p.

Veo 3 specifically is bad at teeth (makes them too perfect), continuity (you might see someone walk behind a lamppost or other object and vanish, or might see a car show up from behind another car), and as described earlier, Time (if a shot is more than 20 seconds, it is likely real, Veo 3 is expensive to make long clips with) Frame rate, Veo 3 also falls under the Vibes issue, and i can tell if something is made by Veo 3 with about 60% certainty as long as I'm trying to look for it, but that is only because i have looked at a lot of videos made by Veo 3 and real videos, and now the differences my brain looks for subconsciously.

but there are also many other things to look for realistic and digital AI imagery, and it is constantly getting better, if i was sent one year into the future, i know with certainty that i would not be able to spot AI art, i only can because i have been looking out for it constantly over the past couple years, and you should as well, every time you interact with a bot, look at the image, can you tell? hopefully the answer is yes, if not, literally just get good.

and remember that it is always first priority to not hurt the careers or mental health of real artists, just because it looks like AI doesn't mean it is, stay on the side of caution, and dint support AI art, it steals real artworks from real people, and just changes them, there are two kinds of AI models, one just directly rips real art and adds an AI filter to it basically (it doesn't, but it looks like it), and ones that have a higher temperature, the only good ones are the ones that make bad art (seriously) if it makes good art but you can still tell its AI, its just copying the lines of a real artist, if it fucks up and makes mistakes, it presumably has a higher temperature and is making content out of recycled art, rather than out of stolen art, both are bad and stealing art from real people, but one is just more invasive, there was a bot creator on this site that recently stuck out to me since they were monetizing AI art (which is a horrible thing to do in the first place), but also the generation model they used was so low temperature (i don't know if temp is the actual terminology for image generators), that their AI art could literally be reverse image searched via google and the original could be found (not even any of the other better reverse searchers), i will not say your name here, that would be rude, but you know who you are, i literally commented on one of your bots 32 minutes ago and am waiting for a reply, i have never seen an AI art practice that disgusts me more than the way you have monetized it.

lastly, if you cant tell if a profile picture on this site is AI generated, ask me, i will always try to answer when possible, or upload it to catbox.moe and tell me in the comments if its a png, jpg, gif, etc, and the 6 characters that identify it, such as jnefu0, 3id9fx, 1njsdi, jnsddf, but those are just random examples i keyboard mashed to get.

here is an example, the artist of the real image is Sky_Above_Me

Real ^^^
(Are you able to see either of these two images? i can, but i cant on my alt account, so im unsure)
AI vvv
Update: there is now an ai short form video platform called Sora, using the Ai Sora 2, it seems to be of similar quality to Veo 3, it likely has similar issues, but to be honest, if you cant tell videos from vibes alone you are just simply fucked, there are still inconsistencies, and i have quickly realized they are learnable and trackable, but it takes time to learn.

Update: Sora 2 is better quality than Veo 3, if you aren't the best at noticing ai content: You. Are. Fucked. The ONLY tell that Sora 2 has other than uncommon inconsistencies and rare logical errors is vibes, also it doesn't always have a watermark

Basically, you look at a video,

does it seem real?
yes: either it is real, or you cant tell.
no: either you have a good sense of vibes, or you don't.

if simply just looking at it doesn't tell you, then you have no way to know anymore. if i had to guess, about august 2026 is when ai is going to be at the point where it is identical to human produced content.

In my personal opinion, AI content isn't the issue, its letting people or companies manipulate others with it. i would have no issues living in a world where AI art is a thing, but i would have many issues being in a world where that art was made by corporate greed, stealing, and where people can act like they made it.
"AI art looks trash" is NOT a valid argument, cause it will look perfect eventually, and then you're gonna have to find something else to complain about, and by then it will already exist.

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New Model: Nano Banana, if you are not able to tell, that is to be expected, google has a system called Synth ID that can detect images made by google ai, you should probably use that sometimes. the only way to tell Nano Banana images apart from real ones without Synth ID is already being able to easily detect Sora 2 and Veo 3 images with your eyes and just having a lot of experience in this, i practice figuring out whether an image is AI generated a lot, and i suspect that i can only notice Nano Banana images like 30% of the time, Nano Banana does correctly do text unless it is distant and low quality, in which case text will still be weird and incoherent.