Study Finds AI-Generated White Faces More Convincing Than Photographs

A new research led by experts at the Australian National University (ANU) says that white faces generated by artificial intelligence (AI) appear more real than human faces. 

"Remarkably, white AI faces can convincingly pass as more real than human faces - and people do not realise they are being fooled," the researchers report.

The senior author of the paper, Dr Amy Dawel said that the reason for the discrepancy is that AI algorithms are trained disproportionately on White faces. 

One of the issues with AI 'hyper-realism' is that people often don't realise they're being fooled, the researchers found.

The researchers were also able to discover why AI faces are fooling people.

"It turns out that there are still physical differences between AI and human faces, but people tend to misinterpret them. For example, White AI faces tend to be more in-proportion and people mistake this as a sign of humanness," Dr Dawel said.

"However, we can't rely on these physical cues for long. AI technology is advancing so quickly that the differences between AI and human faces will probably disappear soon."

The findings had important implications in the real world, including in identity theft, with the possibility that people could end up being duped by digital imposters, The Guardian reported. 

However, the results did not hold for images of people of colour. 

Raising public awareness can also play a significant role in reducing the risks posed by the technology, the researchers argue.

"Given that humans can no longer detect AI faces, society needs tools that can accurately identify AI imposters," Dr Dawel said.

"Educating people about the perceived realism of AI faces could help make the public appropriately sceptical about the images they're seeing online."