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Mark Saltzman joins us on Thursdays and today we are going to be talking about AI. It seems like every day there's a new angle when it comes to AI, and we are just at the very beginning of this journey. How to identify AI generated photos?
Is it real? Or is it computer generated? Mark knows all the secrets.
It can be tough, it can be you know, it's even though it is early days. I agree with you, Shannon, it is getting to the point where you can it may be tough to see if it's real or not with your own eyes. Yeah, it's uh, We're getting there. But there's a couple of little things you can do. So I wrote an article on how to detect an AI based photo or video. I guess the first thing is just to think, well, why am I seeing this? Did somebody send you something that's on elicited? You know,
like that like question why you're seeing it? To begin with? Before you study the photo or video, just ask yourself why, right?
Why?
Why is uh, you know, Donald Trump sending me something selling his watches in my inbox or something. I don't know, America first watches, I don't know, just so question that. But there are a couple of things you can do. So number one is I always look at this skin first of the person. Is it too smooth, too waxy, or is the hair just perfect. There's a kind of look that a lot of these AI programs have for skin where it's just too polished and I don't mean
like a filter, it's just not real looking. And also, and this is sort of getting they're getting better at this is is the fingers and the toes.
AI has trouble sometimes with you know, with the correct number. Yeah, right, you got like six fingers and stuff like that.
There's a lot of misinformation, a lot of these upaganda photos, you know, especially coming out of the wars in Ukraine or in Gaza, where you're seeing these doctorate images that are not real and they're trying to you know, cause an emotional reaction, which often works.
But if you look at it and there you say.
Oh, it's that that kid has six fingers, then yeah, then you know that it's not real. Also, the eyes is a tell all things. If it looks blank or lifeless or unnaturally shiny. Then that also can be helped, but it can be tough, and especially if you're looking at it on your phone. Everything's too small. Yeah, it's small. You may not see these little things. But yeah, again, just question why you're seeing it. Another trick that I
do sometimes is I do a reverse Google search. So I'll download the photo and I'll reverse search it on the Google Image option and it'll show up in multiple places and it can tell you if it's real or not. There's all so free AI detection tools if you want to go that far. One's called Illuminati and other ones called deep Fake Detector. These are tools that can tell you a little bit more definitively than your hunch, your
Spidey sense if it's real or not. So that's one thing, but again to me, the biggest one is applying common sense. Why is Oprah endorsing a risky drug or an investment opportunity? Just just question why you're seeing this to begin with. And then similarly, videos are are it's the same thing. Look for anything weird, like the shadows don't match, or the lighting doesn't match, the you know, or the look at the lips and the voice as good as they're getting.
You can often tell that the voice and the lips it's not real. It's or if the voice lacks emotion or has weird like a weird cadence, or you know, the I play these games on my phone where I know when I'm sitting through ads on them.
When they're AI generated there.
These games are often made over seas, and the ads it's like, Hi, I'm a neuro neurologist, and i recommend this puzzle game and I'm looking at the lips and this it's just it's just off. So you're again, you
should probably tell pretty well. So if you want to find this article on how to tell if something is fake or not a deep fake, just do a search for my name, Mark Saltsman, Mark with the sea, Saltsman with the Z, and you'll and and just type in deep fake and you'll you'll be able to find my tips.
Mark. I had it.
I saw an image this morning, as a matter of fact, and it brought up a feeling that I saw or that that I had when I saw another image, probably a couple of months ago, and it was a like an evolving figure. In this case, it was at a water park, so think of SeaWorld or something like that. And it was supposed to be a fat person in like morbidly obese person in the tank instead of a whale. And it was clearly an AI generated person, but the face was very realistic. Uh, And it gave me this
very weird feeling. And the other feeling I had that similar in that there was a video I think I mentioned this on the air. There was a video taken in an airport walkway a concourse somewhere and there was an image of a very large spider with a human head on it and it was attacking somebody.
Now it's the weirdest. Now again those are those are.
Yes, But but what about it? I knew, But yeah, I know it's fake. But there's there's a there's a weird and I mean legitimate biological reaction to us seeing things that like we're not supposed to see.
I don't like what it is.
Well, yeah, again, it's just your brain telling you that is something that is not logical for you to see with your eyes. You know, I mean the first description about the sea world or whatever, I can't envision X. I don't know how unrealistic it looked for this obese person. But the second one, clearly you don't often see a human face on a giant spider's body, right, not often, So yeah, that's that again.
That's that's probably an easier.
Thing to detect than you know, what looks like a politician who you've you've seen their face a million times and you're looking at it on your phone. It may look really like them, but that one should be a little bit easier to guess.
It's not.
But yeah, it's that weird sensation. If you remember TV's It is a bit off topic. The TV's a couple of years ago had this like soap opera effect on it. Oh yeah, Companies were trying to smooth out motion and it was an inexpensive way of doing it.
Even though you're watching.
Like Jurassic Park, it looks like it was shot like on the It looks like it was like on the yn R set, you know, and it had this weird thing. And it is only when you turned it off did you realize. But you couldn't put your finger on what looked weird about it. It was almost shot with like a video tape, like a video recorder, a VHS recorder from the eighties a camp quarder. But yeah, so yeah, trust your spidey sense more than anything, you.
Know, spidey sense. Could we find another sense that we can.
Why you know like that, Oh yeah, sorry the spider spider, but the sorry about Yeah your gut, your gut, trust your gut.
I don't know, is there Okay.
The other thing is the other question I had for you was, if you think back in recent history, within the last year or two, if not slightly more than that, is there a specific image that we now know was AI generated that at the time you fell.
For Yeah, I can't think of anything off hand.
Again, if you do a reverse search, because you know, you might feel like you've seen that picture before and it's so so when you do that reverse search, it's not just to verify if it's AI or not, but also if it's been used over and over and over again.
I don't know if there.
I think that you know, the the meme of the guy with his arm around the girl and he's looking at another girl behind him. So that's been obviously a popular meme and everybody changes what the person is looking back at.
But I don't know if that is real or not, or if that's that was a real.
Feel like that's like a Geeddy image image.
Yeah, yeah, like when you type in I stock photo or Eddy. But I suspect I don't know if that's real. That's one that I'm not sure if it's real or not, because it's.
Just it's so old. I think that it's got to be real.
The reason, the reason I thought of it was because when we when I saw that we were going to do this topic today, what immediately came to mind was Pope Francis in that Balenciaga puffer jacket.
Right right, a couple of years ago. Yeah, that was only like that. Yeah, I guess you're right about two years ago.
I'm filling up my dreams with very troubling images.
Yes, thank you so much. A spider wearing a puffer jacket.
The Pope is involved attacking somebody at an airport.
All right, perfect, Mark, thank you for your time.
Yeah, of course. Likewise, have a good one, happy Easter long weekend. Thank you. I appreciate that. Gobble gobble. Oh wait, that's deferent. Thanksgiving