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Last month, i.e., June, saw a photograph of a certain mango tree in Yemen becoming popular on the internet. Many social media users re-posted the image across different platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, the peculiar picture showcased a mango tree that contained an unnatural amount of mangoes hanging from it in a cluster, almost like giant yellow grapes.
However, the viral image is not real as it is an AI-generated picture made using Bing Image Creator. On June 27, a re-post of the image by Twitter account @Arabbeau, which has over 277,000 followers as of this writing, amass over 1.6 million views.
Despite Yemen being the popular choice, many users claimed that the mango Tree was from other countries. In a tweet dating back to June 28 that showed the viral mango tree picture, Twitter user @MrBlackOG claimed that the tree was in Kenya. The post has received over 236,000 views.
Meanwhile, an Instagram post by @mivegram, a vegetable and fruit account with over 276,000 followers, claimed that the tree was from Sarbaz city in Iran. The post has since then gained over 6,500 likes.
The viral mango tree image is generated using Bing Image Creator
As the viral image made its round on the social media website, several users pointed out that the mango tree picture is an AI-generated image.
This is evident through from the watermark that can be seen on the bottom left corner of the image, whereby the logo means that the picture was created using Bing Image Creator. The same logo is present in every image made by the AI. Additionally, Twitter user HoaxEye, or @hoaxeye, also pointed out the same and that it was "powered by DALL-E."
Moreover, fact-checking website Snopes got confirmation from a Microsoft spokesperson that the image was created by Bing Image Creator. According to Microsoft's official website, the site adds the logo so that online users can easily identify the veracity of the image and whether or not it is AI-generated.
"We include a modified Bing icon in the bottom left corner of each image to help indicate that the image was created using Image Creator."
As such, the Bing Image Creator allows users to create AI-generated Images from descriptive words. The tool is powered by an advanced version of the Dall-E model, which is a deep-learning module developed by OpenAI that creates digital images from prompts. Reportedly, Microsoft is OpenAI's largest investor.
Since it is available in all browsers, the Bing Image Creator is integrated into Microsoft Edge and can be opened from a sidebar icon. The image creator has a limit of 25 images a day. AI-generated Images can be used for various purposes, including blogs, concept visualizations, and sheer amusement. For faster image generation users, they are given 100 boosts in a week.
Tips to identify AI-Generated images
Fact-checking website Snopes provided a few useful tips to identify AI-generated images. The first tip is to ioom In on the image to reveal the detailed image in its entirety. An AI-generated image usually contains certain details that may look odd or unnatural.
If there are human subjects in the image, their hands and mouth are to be evaluated carefully. A common area for AI-Image generators to struggle with realism is the hands and mouths of human subjects. Hands may look unnatural or contain more than five fingers while human lips may seem doubled.
A reverse image search is a useful tool in helping to identify AI-Generated images. However, such images may not show the same matching result from the internet database. TinEye is an example of a reliable image reverse-searching website.
A dedicated fact-checking website, Snopes also contains a database of disproven AI-generated images.
