In an era when artificial intelligence (AI) imaging is at the fingertips of the masses, the ability to detect fake photos – especially deep fakes of people – is becoming increasingly important.
What if you could tell just by looking into someone’s eyes?
That’s the compelling finding of new research shared at the Royal Astronomical Society’s National Astronomy Meeting in Hull, which suggests that AI-generated fakes can be spotted by analyzing human eyes in the same way astronomers study photographs of galaxies.
The core of the work, by University of Hull MSc student Adejumoke Owolabi, is about the reflection in a person’s eyes.
If the reflections match, the image is likely that of a real person. If they don’t, they are probably deepfakes.
A series of fake eyes showing inconsistent reflections in each eye.
Adejumoke Owolabi
“Reflections in the eyeball are consistent for the real person, but inaccurate (from a physics point of view) for the fake person,” said Kevin Pimbblet, professor of astrophysics and director of the Center of Excellence for Data Science, Artificial Intelligence and . Modeling at the University of Hull.
The researchers analyzed light reflections on people’s eyes in real and AI-generated images. They then used methods commonly used in astronomy to quantify the reflections and checked for consistency between the left and right eyeball reflections.
Fake images often lack consistency in reflections between each eye, while real images generally show the same reflections in both eyes.
“To measure the shapes of galaxies, we analyze whether they are compact in the centre, whether they are symmetrical and how smooth they are. We analyze the distribution of light,” Professor Pimbblet said.
“We detect the reflections in an automated way and drive their morphological features through CAS [concentration, asymmetry, smoothness] and Gini indices to compare similarity between left and right heads.
“The findings show that “deepfakes” have some differences between them”.
A set of real eyes showing consistent reflections in both eyes.
Adejumoke Owolabi
The Gini coefficient is commonly used to measure how the light in an image of a galaxy is distributed among its pixels. This measurement is made by sorting the pixels that make up the image of a galaxy in ascending order of flux and then comparing the result to what would be expected from a perfectly even distribution of flux.
A Gini value of 0 is a galaxy in which the light is evenly distributed across all pixels in the image, while a Gini value of 1 is a galaxy with all the light concentrated in a single pixel.
The team also tested CAS parameters, a tool originally developed by astronomers to measure the light distribution of galaxies to determine their morphology, but found that it was not a successful predictor of false eyes.
“It is important to note that this is not a silver bullet for detecting fake images,” Professor Pimbblet added.
“There are false positives and false negatives; it won’t catch everything. But this method gives us a baseline, a plan of attack, in the arms race to detect deep fakes.”
Media contacts
Sam Tonkin
Royal Astronomical Society
+44 (0) 7802 877 700
press@ras.ac.uk
Dr Robert Massey
Royal Astronomical Society
Mob: +44 (0) 7802 877 699
press@ras.ac.uk
Megan Eaves
Royal Astronomical Society
press@ras.ac.uk
Scientific contacts
Kevin Pimblet
University of Hull
K. Pimbblet@hull.ac.uk
Images and captions
Real v Fake image
Caption: In this image, the person on the left is real, while the person on the right is created by AI. Their eyeballs are depicted under their faces. Eyeball reflections are consistent for the real person, but inaccurate (from a physics point of view) for the fake person.
Credit: Adejumoke Owolabi
Deep examples
Caption: A series of fake eyes showing inconsistent reflections in each eye.
Credit: Adejumoke Owolabi
Real eye examples
Caption: A series of real eyes showing consistent reflections in both eyes.
Credit: Adejumoke Owolabi
Notes to editors
The NAM 2024 conference is principally sponsored by the Royal Astronomical Society, the Science and Technology Facilities Council and the University of Hull.
About the Royal Astronomical Society
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About the University of Hull’s EA Milne Centre
The EA Milne Center for Astrophysics at the University of Hull brings together experts who study the evolution of structure in the Universe from stars to galaxies and galaxy clusters to the largest structures in the cosmos.
The center uses observations, theories and computational methods in collaboration with international partners. Graduate and undergraduate students work alongside staff to understand the wonders of the Universe. Through a range of outreach activities, the center also aims to share its passion for astronomy and astrophysics with the region and beyond.