Technology

#AI tool detects Deepfakes by analyzing light reflections in the eyes

#AI tool detects Deepfakes by analyzing light reflections in the eyes

Deepfakes are being used for a range of nefarious purposes, from disinformation campaigns to inserting people into porn, and the doctored images are getting harder to detect.

A new AI tool provides a surprisingly simple way of spotting them: looking at the light reflected in the eyes.

The system was created by computer scientists from the University at Buffalo. In tests on portrait-style photos, the tool was 94% effective at detecting Deepfake images.

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The system exposes the fakes by analyzing the corneas, which have a mirror-like surface that generates reflective patterns when illuminated by light.

In a photo of a real face taken by a camera, the reflection on the two eyes will be similar because they’re seeing the same thing. But Deepfake images synthesized by GANs typically fail to accurately capture this resemblance.

Instead, they often exhibit inconsistencies, such as different geometric shapes or mismatched locations of the reflections.

The corneal regions have much clearer differences in the deepfake image (right), likely because they're generated by combining many photos.
Credit: Lyu et. al
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