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AI Lab · Is it AI?

Real photo or AI image?

20 rounds. Landscapes, food and everyday objects: half are real photos by real photographers, half were made by an AI image model. Trust your eye, then learn what gave it away.

Round 1 of 20

Score 0
Mystery image: real photo or AI?

Tell-tale signs to look for

  • Too-perfect, glossy surfaces and very smooth backgrounds.
  • Garbled text, odd patterns or objects melting into each other.
  • Lighting and shadows that don't quite agree.
  • Ultra-dramatic "postcard" colours everywhere in the frame.

None of these is proof on its own. Today's AI images can fool experts, which is why checking the source matters.

Photo credits and how this quiz was made

Real photos come from Wikimedia Commons under free licences (shown below), resized for this quiz. The AI images were made once by us with the FLUX.1 [dev] model from text prompts of landscapes, food and objects only. No people, no real places named. Machine-readable credits: credits.json and ai_set.json.

  1. Lake Sylvester during the sunrise, Kahurangi, New Zealand.jpg by Michal Klajban, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  2. Frische, selbstgemachte Reibekuchen-8786.jpg by Raimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  3. Longines 4 Grand Prix pocket watch - clockwork visible - enhanced resolution DSF3402-PSMS.jpg by Franz van Duns, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  4. Munnar - Lockhart tea plantation.jpg by Ingo Mehling, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  5. Paulie Gee's Slice Shop (35386).jpg by Rhododendrites, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  6. Parked bicycle with graffitied building facade and doors in Amsterdam.jpg by Basile Morin, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  7. Snow Canyon.jpg by The Cosmonaut, CC BY-SA 2.5 ca, resized.
  8. Bowl of Strawberries.jpg by ShakataGaNai, CC BY-SA 3.0, resized.
  9. Matcha tea latte with rosetta latte art.jpg by Irvan Ary Maulana, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  10. Sopot 2023 10 Lighthouse.jpg by Scotch Mist, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  11. Backlit keyboard.jpg by Colin, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  12. Snowshil-Lavender.jpg by Saffron Blaze, CC BY-SA 3.0, resized.
  13. Sashimi of São Paulo.jpg by Wilfredor, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  14. Old friends.jpg by Herbythyme, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  15. Koh Mak (island), Thailand, Palm trees on the beach.jpg by Vyacheslav Argenberg, CC BY 4.0, resized.
  16. Breads of Russia.jpg by Dmitry Makeev, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  17. Knoblauch Blüte focus stack-20250713-RM-111019.jpg by Reinhold Möller Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  18. Bamberg Bruderwald Herbst-20151102-RM-110637.jpg by Ermell, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  19. At New York City 2024 120.jpg by Photograph by Mike Peel (www.mikepeel.net)., CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.
  20. Ensign Midget - model 22 camera in comparison to a type 135 film roll.jpg by Franz van Duns, CC BY-SA 4.0, resized.