There are a lot of AI-generated photos making the rounds on social media these days, so how can you tell the difference between fact and fiction? AccuWeather's Geoff Cornish breaks down the details.
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00:00You know, people are using artificial intelligence in many good ways to leverage productivity
00:04and increase business and so forth, make our lives easier, but there could be some confusion
00:09out there.
00:10And while there may be some room for artistic license in the world of AI imagery, there
00:14are a lot of times that these images are passed off as real weather photos, and we don't want
00:19you to fall for it.
00:20There are some click farms out there on social media that make a lot of money by deceiving
00:24you and many others.
00:26So if you're looking at weather photos that may be too amazing to be true, there are amazing
00:31things that happen, but consider the source.
00:33Is this from a professional photographer or a reputable organization or some maybe Facebook
00:38page with a generic name?
00:40Look for imaging consistencies, unusual patterns, out of place objects, and also consider meteorological
00:45principles.
00:46For example, rainbows should be on the opposite side of the sky as the sun.
00:51Now some of these are pretty obvious.
00:52Here we've got the sun and a big rainbow that doesn't even look real.
00:55I don't think many would fall for that, but some might.
00:57The aurora rarely have this vibrant spectrum of colors all at the same time, and the sky's
01:02not even all that dark.
01:03But let's take a look at a few real-world images.
01:06This is a real image, and you can find this on AccuWeather's photo blog.
01:10One thing that is a sign that this is a real one is that the distance between the arc above
01:15left and right of the sun is equal.
01:19Sometimes there are some things that happen, in fact we can go back to this and show you
01:23an example of an AI image that's not totally accurate.
01:26The distance to the arc from the top or to the sides varies quite a bit.
01:30Here's a real image of a spectacular sunset from Washington, D.C. that inspired this AI
01:36imagery where you can see the Washington Monuments in the wrong spot coming out of the top of
01:40another building.
01:41Here's another example, a real photo from Tony Laubach, and in this case, it's an amazing
01:45photo, that's a real one.
01:47Here is an AI image that looks kind of similar with a different texture on the underside
01:51of the clouds.