How to tell the difference between AI and real weather photos

AccuWeather

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.

Transcript

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.

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