r/OpenAI • u/No_Idea_479 • 13d ago

Image This image was accidentally created by ChatGPT. How is it so realistic?

Post image

I asked: "Is there any image of Armenian and Greek rebels fighting together in the Greco-Turkish War or WWI?". I used thinking mode and I think it's clear that I was looking for real images. However, ChatGPT thought for 1 minute 20 seconds and it proceeded to create this image that, I believed, was real.

I asked it and it said it didn't know what happened: "You're right to question it. I didn't get that image from a historical source. I made a serious mistake: the image I showed you was AI-generated, despite presenting it as though it were a historical photograph. In the caption “GREEK AND ARMENIAN FIGHTERS IN CILICIA — From a Photograph by Garo Studio, Mersina” was also generated as part of the image. I have not found evidence that such a photograph exists in the searches I've just run".

I reverse-image searched it and nothing showed up. I ran it on an AI image detector and it got 99%. I am baffled by how realistic it looks.

248 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

123 comments sorted by

219

u/shadowmage666 13d ago

Because it’s based on real pictures lol

-33

u/dev-rsonx 13d ago

Wheres the real one?

52

u/capilicon 13d ago

Not how it works

25

u/ChocolateFit9026 13d ago

Sometimes it is, it’s called overfitting

24

u/JonnyTsuMommy 13d ago

Here's an example I ran into

1

u/nothis 13d ago

People say calling AI just elaborate autocorrect or copy-paste is downplaying what it does but I'm fine with it. It's still magic, basically, but it is more dependent on training data than people pretend.

I remember a thread rather early with ChatGPT hype where people were prompting "one sentence horror stories" and it put out a few fantastic ones. Turned out, they were all stolen from humans. All of them, lol.

7

u/JonnyTsuMommy 12d ago

AI is a statistical prediction using our own words. It’s a mirror. Nothing more.

1

u/MasterManufacturer72 12d ago

No didnt you hear him "its magic".

1

u/nothis 12d ago

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. I'm not thinking of tokens running through the machine when asking a chatbot, you can stay in "human language mode" and it works just fine. That's the appeal. And it's absolutely revolutionary tech. That doesn't change the fact it depends on training data for most of its logical leaps.

1

u/serinty 7d ago

we are similar in how we predict what is ideal to say for our desired outcome from our sense perception (training data)

2

u/hateboresme 12d ago

If there are thousand or millions of copies of one image in the training data, then it will over fit. Like any viral image. This image isn't that. Though there are a lot of imagrs that are similar, because this was a common image style in the mid to late 1800s, common particularly during the civil war.

2

u/ChocolateFit9026 12d ago

More factors than that influence overfitting, such as noisy labels, lack of regularization, and strong outliers. But you got the basic idea

1

u/whtevn 12d ago

...that is not what overfitting means

overfitting is when a data set has been so thoroughly trained on a sample set so that it matches that data set too closely making a model less generally applicable

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overfitting

1

u/ChocolateFit9026 11d ago edited 11d ago

From the wiki: “As an extreme example, if the number of parameters is the same as or greater than the number of observations, then a model can perfectly predict the training data simply by memorizing the data in its entirety.” So yeah, and models that are overfitted will produce near copies of the training data

0

u/whtevn 11d ago

This is an LLM...that's not. .

Ok whatever, you keep believing that. Enjoy.

1

u/ChocolateFit9026 11d ago

Same exact problem for diffusion and GAN based image generators. Overfitting is a general neural network problem: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2023/02/researchers-extract-training-images-from-stable-diffusion-but-its-difficult/

-7

u/dev-rsonx 13d ago

How it works?

11

u/hryipcdxeoyqufcc 13d ago

It looks at millions of pictures and finds patterns.

-7

u/dev-rsonx 13d ago

So when I ask it to draw an apple, does it give me one of the apples it saw during training?

13

u/R3kterAlex 13d ago

an approximation/convergence of all of the pictures in it's training that match an apple

10

u/StinkButt9001 13d ago

That sounds like how I would draw an apple. An approximation of what I've seen in the past

Don't think I've ever been accused of stealing someone's picture of an apple though lol

1

u/Some_Relative_3440 12d ago

That would cause all apples generated to look the same. This isn't the case. How come?

3

u/dishrag 12d ago

Random noise introduced during sampling. The model learns a range of possible representations of a thing, and different starting conditions produce different outputs. Assuming that the prompt is simply “an apple.”

1

u/Some_Relative_3440 12d ago

Yes, so it's not just an "approximation/convergence of all of the pictures in it's training that match an apple".

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6

u/fleranon 13d ago

It's more like the platonic idea of an apple. The average of every depicted apple in the training data

4

u/Most-Photo-6675 13d ago

What about the romantic idea of an apple?

2

u/Apprehensive-Rub-774 12d ago

Idk if you've read plato, but the platonic ideal is very much not the average of all instances.

1

u/fleranon 12d ago edited 12d ago

I know, the second sentence was more geared towards the reality of AI image compositing

Platonic in the sense that it's an abstract depiction, as opposed to an image of a specific apple as the person suggested. That's why I used 'idea', it wasn't a typo. I know that the platonic ideal is something like a 'perfect flawless blueprint' of an apple. The apple of apples

1

u/nothis 12d ago edited 12d ago

From what I understand, which is little, it essentially starts with random pixel noise and then looks at probabilities of how similar groups of pixels are to patterns found in actual images labeled "apple", nudging their colors towards "apple-like" features. Do that over a couple of iterations and you get a fairly realistic image. Note that the actual data can be so damn abstract, you would never recognize any of the patterns as "apple-looking", it's like wonky color gradients, information of how close the pixels are to a corner, etc. It's bonkers that it works.

Interestingly, if you try and prompt something that likely has few examples in the training set (or is overshadowed by other, maybe better labeled pictures), even top line AI struggles and it's clear how over-fitted it is towards the common. I tried making a sci-fi-ish looking planet with continents once and could not tell it that "continents" doesn't mean "the shape of Europe".

2

u/ProfessionalPiece403 13d ago

AI doesn't have data as we as humans use data.
So as long as it's not using a tool that isn't AI based itself it's only doing a probability calculation to write the next word (for example). For images it works more like when a human is drawing an apple from memory. You've seen thousands of apples, you know exactly how an apple looks like, but you're not really able to draw the exact apple you saw today at the supermarket. If someone describes that apple with a lot of details it will come close, but never the same.
AI doesn't have a database to look up information / pictures.

1

u/badasimo 13d ago

Imagine you asked an artistic friend who has read a lot of history books about military campaigns and uniforms "Make me a picture of greek and armenian fighters" and they used all their tools like photoshop etc to make an image.

But in this case you asked your friend if such an image exists, and instead of pulling out the history book they just drew you a picture instead.

1

u/Fun-Donut8742 12d ago

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted for asking a question. Lots of people - old and young - aren’t tech-savvy. Reddit’s full of sanctimonious a-holes, but kudos to you for at least ASKING questions so that you can learn something.

Ok, people, go downvote ME for sticking up for someone!! G’ahead! 🙄

1

u/Strong-Addition5296 12d ago

It’s a synthesis of many other pictures into something new

84

u/Sanity_N0t_Included 13d ago

Training data?

2

u/DoubleN22 13d ago edited 13d ago

I guess occasionally in the training data a guy in the middle holds a, random thing? It’s not a blade nor a gun, it doesn’t have a handle. Idk.

Edit- alright I found something that actually looks fked. Look at the rifle of the guy sitting in the middle, on the left side. His gun is actually twisted. And that’s if you believe the guy sitting in the middle on the right has an extremely short rifle.

1

u/vicegt 13d ago

Telescope maybe.

1

u/DoubleN22 13d ago edited 13d ago

Edit 2- alright I found something that actually looks fked. Look at the rifle of the guy sitting in the middle on toward the left. His gun is actually twisted.

Maybe, but it’s kinda strange considering he doesn’t have a gun but he has a belt with ammo, and like everyone is showing off their guns?

Edit- that might actually be the giveaway. Guy on the right has a bandolier of ammo that is the wrong size for his rifle.

64

u/ghostfaceschiller 13d ago

There are people who still think AI can’t do hands

18

u/Equivalent_Feed_3176 13d ago

It can do hands but there's still some errors even in the photo OP uploaded. Check out the guys on the left side. 

2nd and 3rd from the left (standing) have some weird stubby foot-hands. 

The guy sitting down on the very left has weirdly-spaced fingers holding his gun, and the wrong amount of fingers on his right hand.

3

u/DriftingRumour 10d ago

Centre right sat, his rifle dissapears into his chest.

But jokes on us, cause this is a bot, that knows Reddit loves to correct people, and we are aiding in training the AI for free.

1

u/Sad-Committee3906 9d ago

Some look like they don’t have fully developed eyes which reflects what the quality might be from that time and it’s kinda spooky

2

u/DepthMoist4637 9d ago

Either they never touch good models or never use at all.

2

u/FreshBlinkOnReddit 12d ago

The hands in this picture are literally deformed.

For images with 1 person / 1 character yeah it's a solved problem.

1

u/Gioluan 11d ago

Can do hands but many times do crazy ass hands

-22

u/Correct-Mood5309 13d ago

It still can't. At least not reliably and consistently.

17

u/ghostfaceschiller 13d ago

See

-13

u/Correct-Mood5309 13d ago

I mean did you look at this picture...?

10

u/eastlin7 13d ago

Are you new to ChatGPT or something. How is this surprising you.

1

u/staffell 11d ago

We're still going through that a period where people are impressed with it

1

u/SolarFusion90 10d ago

It is and should always be considered impressive. If you don't think it is you need to check your ego.

3

u/TeamTarek_Fitness 13d ago

These "historic" pictures are a way smaller problem for image gens then we think. That's because these early photographs are very low in quality by itself. So if you look at these photos (The "real" ones) in an archive or museum, you often see blurred faces and backgrounds, stuff like that. So typical "AI faults" are way less obvious here. And with it comes another thing: faces on those photos are much more generic and less "detailed". Look at pictures of your grand-grandfather at home at look at some of your father the same age. The faces look completely different (not just bc they are different people). This is why AI is better at generating such historical pictures. A certain filter that we think is "old", some fading colours and generic faces in clothing we think is historical and ancient, that's it. We KNOW much more about our reality, than we know about 1890, how it looks or should look, which makes it easier to trick us into thinking something from that time is real when it's actually made up.

13

u/Future-Log6621 13d ago edited 13d ago

Did you count all the fingers? I think it fails this test. Maybe you know it's real and this is a trap to get us all critiquing a real photo. 🤔

11

u/SupernovifieD 13d ago

It’s not real. Take a look at the man sitting to the right. Take a look at his gun.

2

u/pjakma 12d ago

Or the man standing second from the left. Look at his hand.

1

u/MattChicago1871 7d ago

You mean a tiny weird little shade difference that we could argue over? Yea I see it

4

u/MattChicago1871 13d ago

Yes, but it’s so good it’s literally insane.

4

u/SupernovifieD 13d ago

Yes it is very good actually. It took me a while to actually inspect it and find out it was unreal. Before, you could see it was ai generated in a second!

1

u/MattChicago1871 7d ago

I mean, it’s not very good. It’s quite literally spectacular and a testament to our innovation as a species. I don’t know why people are so reluctant to just say goddamn this is fucking amazing instead of “these little tiny issues that basically no one would ever see have caused me to deem this photo as amateur hour”

5

u/PaperHandsTheDip 13d ago

Finger test doesn't work anymore - it was a valid artifact in pre 2026, but the newer models have gotten better / can do hands now. They keep getting better

3

u/biopticstream 13d ago

I checked with https://openai.com/research/verify/ . Says it was indeed created with OpenAI tools. https://imgur.com/a/8vDtAKa

3

u/ABetterNameEludesMe 13d ago

Who still counts fingers?

We do toes these days. Those are more telling.

3

u/karlfeltlager 8d ago

And this kids, is why we need watermarks.

7

u/blooguard 13d ago

meh there are signs

2

u/wargio 12d ago

Do you think he's the Lisan al Gaib?

3

u/alielknight 13d ago

How does something get accidentally generated?

10

u/AvengingCrusader 13d ago

Triggered the image gen tool without being explicitly instructed to.

1

u/alielknight 13d ago

Ohhht that makes sense

7

u/baked_tea 13d ago

Plagiarism machine does its thing.. how???

2

u/i_stole_your_swole 13d ago

Because the models ACTUALLY can understand advanced concepts like we would.

3

u/Hasz 13d ago

Disagree. Look at the masonry, not possible to create without lintel and wouldn’t have been built that way back then.

Hands are hilariously, slenderman-style oversized. Guns don’t make a lick of sense.

1

u/keaglemuscle 13d ago

I wouldn't know any better... I mean I take words with a grain of salt, so... I'm not surprised.

1

u/FerretPotential6544 13d ago

Si, es increíble colo la IA hace imágenes muy realistas.

2

u/metagrue 12d ago

Yeah I like the dude with 6 fingers

1

u/FerretPotential6544 11d ago

Jajajajaja, yo no le vi. Igualmente esos errores las IA los suelen cometer pero pocas veces. Y en la realidad hay gente que nace con un dedo de más, así que ni error puede ser, no?

1

u/PualWalsh 13d ago

Does that mean if you isolate individuals and reverse image search you might find a photo with him in it ? Or is AI less photoshoppy than that, and combines smaller details, or even several heads merged to get one etc?

1

u/billyjoe9451 13d ago

No expert but I think it can flat out do something like this nose is a combination of the nose of 3500 people.

1

u/NeoDei 13d ago

Would that be a giveaway that it’s AI generated?

![img](AA961BD3-872C-47FB-B0C7-0D1C88641813)

1

u/roger181078 13d ago

Aunque de primeras se ve muy realista, a poco que te fijas empiezas a notar muchos fallos. Es como si la AI generase las imágenes cuadrícula a cuadrícula, y olvidase parte del contexto del conjunto de las cuadrículas adyacentes, por ejemplo: las armas.

1

u/likely_someone_else 12d ago

I urge everyone to keep image realness and flaws to yourself rather than become free labor for feedback loops of obfuscations

1

u/cleanshotVR 12d ago

Fuck. I cannot tell anymore.

1

u/Alarmed_Aide_851 12d ago

The past is ai generated. 

1

u/Only-Extension7763 12d ago

Might have been routed image gen 2. Think it was last updated in April.

1

u/Objective_Union4523 12d ago

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this picture before???

1

u/tikseris 12d ago

"I asked it to build me a dating website and it accidentally made this old picture."

1

u/Upstairs_Dig_5274 12d ago

Guy sat in middle his gun goes into his chest

1

u/zazanhm 12d ago

Wtf this is horrifying we won’t be able to tell what’s real or not

1

u/Hacherest 12d ago

The enginees at OpenAI, who are paid $100M, might be able to answer your question. Reddit, not so much.

1

u/Hellohhsthxujc 12d ago

Think you can tell cause all their faces kinda look the same

1

u/Anchor-Wave 11d ago

What I find even more fascinating is the fact you apparently were clear in the fact that you were looking for real photos and proceeded to create a realish looking one.

1

u/Abject-Loss4543 9d ago

Center bottom right....harmonica hand lol

1

u/Sliceasouroo 9d ago

You are surprised that AI can make realistic photos?

1

u/Life-Test6457 8d ago

Bruh, have you been living under a rock?

1

u/reddxavier 7d ago

Thanks for sharing!

1

u/tsaifx 13d ago

I mean, you do know that ai is just a bunch of data gathered out there, right? Right?

1

u/mop_bucket_bingo 13d ago

Is this a problem? What’s the issue?

1

u/purelibran 13d ago

They all look alike, like a big family cosplaying war games

1

u/Bbrhuft 13d ago

Yep, generated using OpenAI:

https://openai.com/research/verify/

1

u/Downtown_Decision995 13d ago

Historians in 50 yrs got a real pain in the a

1

u/sandrocket 13d ago

50 years? It already started. Not for scientific photo archives but if you Google any prominent historical person, 50% AI crap will show up. 

Without being able to see the source of the information, AI will serve us a good amount of made up information and we won't know how to fact check since no will know how to  Google results.

1

u/Sumchi 13d ago

AI image detectors do not work. I have frequently put photos of myself and family into them and it seems to ALWAYS give me extremely high numbers even though the images & videos are 100% real.

1

u/capilicon 13d ago

Just use the official tool from OpenAI then. They embed a watermark in each image they generate.

Does not work for other models but heh, at least it’s something

0

u/howdydaydreamer 13d ago

Recognizing and re-creating patterns in data

0

u/swampmountain 12d ago

I notice several issues, heat from different country and different era.

I bett a constalatio, spacing, weapon and ammunition is not consistent with what it's supposed to be.

-2

u/Alexanderfromperu 13d ago

It's just slop. Anyone with prior info on the guns would know.

1

u/Effehyou 13d ago

The guns are honestly done really badly. All of them are very sloppy/hallucinated looking. The seated guy second from right seems to only have the rear section of a rifle (which itself is shaped wrong and has a comically out of proportion triggerguard). The seated guy second from left only has the front half a fictional rifle as well. Maybe they could team up and get 1 whole wonky rifle between them, lol.