That AI video of the pope in a puffy jacket had me fooled for a solid 10 minutes

Saw that deepfake of the pope walking around in a white Balenciaga coat on Twitter last week and legit thought it was real until a friend pointed out the weird way the shadows bent around his elbow. Watched a breakdown on YouTube that showed the AI artifacts in the fabric folds and now I check for hand weirdness and shadow wobble before sharing anything. Anyone else got a go-to tell for spotting these generated videos before you get duped?

3 comments

3 Comments

colescott6d agoMost Upvoted

Legit thought it was real" - and that's the whole point, isn't it? The AI is getting so good that obsessing over telltale signs is just a temporary coping mechanism. Soon there won't be any hand weirdness or shadow wobble, and we'll all just have to accept we can't trust our own eyes anymore.

wells.christopher6d ago

Started paying attention to the way people's eyes track things in movement, but yeah @colescott, that's gonna be obsolete in like a year tops. What worked for me was watching old deepfakes side by side with real footage so I could actually spot the differences while they still exist. Got a folder on my phone with real and fake clips that I check when I'm not sure. Your mileage may vary but training your eye now might help build good habits before the glitches disappear completely.

fiona_carr266d ago

Totally agree on the "temporary coping mechanism" part, that's exactly what's happening. I fell for a fake Tom Cruise video last month and only caught it because the lighting in the background reflections didn't match the direction of the sun. Feels like we're all just training our brains to spot glitches that are gonna vanish any day now.