Home / Science / Humans Struggle to Spot AI-Generated Faces, Study Finds
Humans Struggle to Spot AI-Generated Faces, Study Finds
12 Nov
Summary
- People can only identify AI-generated faces 30% of the time
- Five key signs to spot AI fakes: misaligned features, strange teeth, unusual hairlines
- Even 'super recognizers' struggle to reliably detect AI-generated faces
According to a study published on 2025-11-12, people are struggling to distinguish real faces from those generated by artificial intelligence (AI). The research, conducted by scientists from the University of Greenwich, reveals that most individuals can only identify AI-generated faces around 30% of the time.
The study's co-author, Professor Josh Davis, advises looking for five key signs to spot AI fakes: strange warping of the nose, misaligned ears, wonky eyes, missing teeth, or an unusual hairline. However, even with these indicators, the researchers found that a group of 'super recognizers' - people with exceptional face-spotting abilities - could only detect AI-generated images 41% of the time, which is still worse than random chance.
This phenomenon, known as the 'AI hyper-realism effect', means that people often perceive AI-generated faces as more real than actual photographs of people. Previous studies have even shown that individuals find AI-generated faces more trustworthy than real ones. The researchers say that while AI-generated images are becoming increasingly difficult to detect, the small distortions or 'artifacts' in these images are the best indication that they were created by a computer.
