Identifying AI Work in a Digital Age
It’s 2026, and AI is everywhere. If you’ve attempted to access customer service for a major company in the past year or so, you’ve probably spoken with an AI-powered chatbot first. But what exactly is AI, and how can you identify AI in artwork or photography?
First of all, AI isn’t actually intelligent. It “learns” by being fed information from humans, about what we like and dislike, and what appropriate answers could be. It can comb through larger amounts of information than a human could ever process at speeds we can hardly fathom to look for patterns, and give us what it guesses will be the most appropriate answer. However, it doesn’t actively seek out new knowledge and experiences. Those desires are still human.
So, how does this pertain to art? Well, some art studios, graphics designers, and restoration centers have been turning to AI to assist them in their work. Truthfully, AI shows great promise in assisting artists if used properly. AI lacks the capacity for artistic inspiration, but it can link together ideas from a trove of previous human experience to suggest paths forward for artists to build off of.
That said, AI can’t yet replace humans in seeing the entirety of artwork, photos, or videos, nor can it “see” at all. It simply evaluates pixels and does its best. Some tips for identifying things that are completely AI-generated, without any human artistic input, are:
If you have the original, look to the edges. AI systems don’t really know where photographs end, so they have to guess. Often, the result will be that the photo looks zoomed in, and about an inch around the border will be missing.
Look for teeth and fingers. AI work is generative. Every time it’s asked to do something, it creates something new, rather than just editing what already exists. It can’t just change the background color of your high school yearbook photo. It has to rebuild EVERYTHING. This means it has to guess on a lot of things, especially when details get small. If someone’s hand suddenly has 6 fingers, or the number of teeth in their mouth has changed in a portrait, that is a surefire sign of pure AI.
Check out the backgrounds. For photographs, you might see garbled text on a sign, or a tree floating, something that looks fine until you really focus on it. In videos, the background might be unnaturally still, or people might be walking backwards.
AI work is only going to get better as time goes by, and as long as it’s used properly, that’s a good thing. When we have tools, we want those tools to work well. By using these diligent steps, you’ll be able to more regularly identify what is the work of an artist, and what is simply the tool doing the job by itself.