Clues and techniques to spot AI
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tl;dr of whole article:
If it feels AI - it is AI
The Devil is in the details
- Backgrounds -
- AI artifacts and small details -
- Incomplete training data -
- Word "buzz" -
- Does it make sense? -
- AI look and feel -
- Object scale -
- Anti-patterns (clues to human art) -
- And repeat -
- Text -
- Lists & bullet points -
- Introduction & Conclusion -
- Words-parasites -
- Useful resources -
Images
Backgrounds
Rule numero uno - AI always fucks up backgrounds (at least in my experience). If an image has strong bokeh (blurred background) - that's a red flag. AI backgrounds don't make any sense. Inconsistency.
Look out for mirrors, reflective surfaces, buildings, cars, advertisements, foliage, small items and anything that is behind character or far away from "camera".
Alternatively, you can ask Rainbolt to geolocate the place. If unsuccessfull - it may be AI
AI artifacts and small details
They look like this:
TL;DR, shit melts.
Pay attention to surface textures, eyes and eyebrows, things in shadows, line misalignment in objects. Lineart and shadows, things blending into one another or disappearing altogether, nails on fingers. Inconsistency.
NOTE: these artifacts are also present on images, that were upscaled by AI, but not generated by it. So when someone decides to upscale their waifu to "make it better and hi-resolution", this waifu will probably radiate AI artifacts just like images above, even if she was drawn by a human.
Incomplete training data
AI doesn't know many small things that exist in real life, especially obscure ones. Usually, as an input training data, it gets big concepts such as humans, clothes, poses, cars, buildings - but not fine details about them - what kind of fabric and how it folds, different architecture, what brand of a car and so on. Brands, by the way, are very important - AI usually mixes everything into one object. For example, ask it to make an IPhone and you'll get all iphone models morphed together into one ugly blob.
Look for different clothes, branded objects (like phones, or cars), accessories, furniture, instruments, clothing folds and other things, that are not in focus in traditional photography or art.
Word "buzz"
Don't know why, but ai bros love it. Consider it a big, fat red flag
Does it make sense?
AI look and feel
If feels like it is made by AI, it was
This is obvious thing, but trying to put it in words will not hurt:
I can't really describe it properly (can't find fitting words), but AI look and feel is when you see the image, and: feel uncanny valley; see overabundance of details, and you can't properly grasp details; when character is always in center of image; image feels bland, expressionless and so on.
Just visit Civitai and you'll understand what I mean in second.
Object scale
Because AI doesn't fully understand, what it is drawing, it gets the sizes wrong, too.Anti-patterns (clues to human art)
Brush strokes - they are very clear, uniform and consistent. They show that the art is human.
Artists also like to use custom brushes that are translucent or mixing with image or having a rough contour or absolutely anything. They are also uniform and consistent.
Lines are also very consistent in human creations - you can see a normal non-warped straight lines going across the big portion of the image, unlike in generated slop.
Compare imperfections to AI artifacts, that were shown earlier.
And now, go back to the beginning of the article and inspect all images one more time.
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Understood everything? Good, here is reaction image as a reward:
I had a tought of making this little guide for a long time, but it wasn't needed since AI was dogshit, was easily spottable and, therefore, avoidable. Now it isn't.
What's making things worse is not only investors that flock to AI like flies to poo because "innovation", spamming it everywhere, not only companies destroying livelyhood of common people, but also chinese, that started releasing their (actually good) AI models to public for free, making technology more accessable. That boosted progress in faking images as well as filling Internet with garbage. And as of November 2025, it looks like it's not going to stop.
I have sinned too, playing around with local models. But at least that enabled me to understand the terminator better and make this article. (Also I wasn't pushing it into everyone's faces and was not simping for ai companies)
How to fight AI? Stop using it, empty their pockets. Use page 10 of google search. Share the word on how to spot and avoid it. For artists, use nightshade and CONTINUE TO CREATE, don't bitch about how it kills art.
Hope I helped you, internet stranger
Text
Lists & bullet points
LLM's absolutely love lists because:
- Presents a lot of options
- Understood by hooman FAST
- Maybe saves tokens?
- I don't know, really
- AI loves it
Introduction & Conclusion
It will put them into text that don't even need them.
Words-parasites
Certainly!; ensure;
Useful resources
I can spot AI Art quickly (and you can too) by Pikat - very recommended to watch and praticeuBlockOrigin & uBlacklist Huge AI Blocklist and Super SEO Spam Suppressor - will help a little with google search results
Danrisi civitai - ai bro with very realistic loras (addons for AI). I used his images a lot here.