Artificial intelligence tools have taken another leap forward. A new wave of generators can create lifelike video along with realistic audio, including dialogue.
These tools, including Google’s Veo 3, are producing viral videos, satirical commentary and even realistic fakes of disputed events like riots and elections.
Below is a collection of real videos alongside A.I.-generated fakes, which were created by writing basic prompts to guide what the tools come up with.
Your job: tell the difference. (Most of these videos have dialogue. Unmute the videos to hear what’s said.)
1 of 10
Is this conference presentation real or A.I.?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. It was based in the style of a TED Talk.
In a TED Talk style conference presentation, a man in his 40s with a beard and glasses is looking off camera, into the audience and turning slowly to scan the room. He appears a little nervous, over-emphasizing his words, which echo in the large hall. A small microphone is seen attached to his ear and face. He is wearing a tan suit with no tie. The background is entirely black and he’s standing on a carpeted red circle. He’s talking about sleep, saying that while we sleep, our brains are incredibly active, sorting and consolidating memories and information.
2 of 10
Is this model real?
Oops, not quite. This was not made with A.I. tools. This was posted to Instagram by Gökhan Ergin, a photographer based in Istanbul.
3 of 10
Is this a real news broadcast?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. Watchdogs are concerned that A.I. could be used to spread misinformation online, including through realistic broadcasts like these. One current limitation: the clips produced by Google’s Veo are only 6 seconds long. Though we wrote more for the anchor to say, the clip ended before the anchor could relay all the information we had included.
A national news broadcast shows the start of a segment, with one male anchor in his 40s wearing a suit and one female anchor in her 40s wearing a business-casual red dress. They’re sitting at a large desk on a news set with a modern vibe. He speaks in a baritone and says, “Good evening, and thank you for joining us. I’m Todd Owens.” The woman then speaks. “I’m Melissa Moore. We begin tonight with a significant jolt to the global financial markets. Stocks tumbled across the board today, fueled by uncertainty from Washington.”
4 of 10
Is this social media personality real?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. It was based on a genuine YouTube video series by a user named Chubby Chekka, who is walking from the United Kingdom to Vietnam.
A man is seen walking down a dirt road filming himself on his cellphone camera. His body is visible from the waist up. He’s wearing a t-shirt and has a backpack on his back. He speaks with a British accent, talking about how he’s making a big trip across the United Kingdom entirely on foot. He is in his 20s, he has a tattoo on his left arm. The sun is bright in the sky and he’s squinting, with harsh shadows and sharp, rich detail on his face. Everything is in focus, even the background. He’s speaking excitedly but directly, over-emphasizing words like a YouTube influencer. Ultrarealistic, low quality iPhone digital vertical video, for TikTok.
5 of 10
And this nighttime video?
Oops, not quite. This was not made with A.I. tools. This was posted by Romualdas Šapoka, a YouTube user from Lithuania who filmed his three-day hike across the Amazon.
6 of 10
How about this interview?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. This basketball interview perfectly imitates a real sports setting, with fans, coaches, and a sweaty player giving a halting description of his success. Look closer, though, and some flaws come through: people in the background sometimes fade in and out, and the letters on the player’s shirt are garbled. The technology still struggles with text, though it’s getting much better.
An interview with a college basketball star. The basketball player is sweaty and 7 feet tall, looking down as a microphone is held to his face by a shorter journalist. In the background, a crowd of fans are slowly leaving the arena up the stairs, while coaches and other players mill about in the background, speaking with each other or exiting to the left or right. The player says that they tried really hard on defense and were able to get a few clutch stops. Television quality sports broadcast quality.
7 of 10
How about this makeup tutorial?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. Concerns have grown that social media could become polluted with A.I. fakes that are hard to detect, creating a new wave of influencers who look a little too perfect. To generate this clip, we used a much shorter prompt than we used for other videos, telling the program only to create a video in which “a young woman gives a makeup tutorial.” The technology can fill in a lot of gaps in the description and rely on its collection of training data to determine what’s relevant.
A young woman gives a makeup tutorial.
8 of 10
Is this a real fashion video?
Oops, not quite. This was not made with A.I. tools. It was created and uploaded by Ivy Thompson, a YouTube user with a channel called “The Sewlo Artist,” who makes videos about vintage clothing.
9 of 10
Is this genuine crypto advice?
Oops, not quite. This was not made with A.I. tools. It was uploaded by the YouTube user Alex Becker, who creates content about cryptocurrency investing.
The crypto market is a ripe target for scams powered by A.I., allowing scammers to create fake endorsements for their coins or generate inauthentic support on social media.
10 of 10
A real videogame stream, or not?
Oops, not quite. This was made with A.I. tools. The A.I. was able to render multiple unrelated elements together: the videogame (entirely made by A.I.) alongside an inset box of a young teen narrating his strategy. We didn’t write a specific script for this video, instead prompting the character to simply talk about his strategy. The A.I. did the rest.
The video is a livestream of a video game. A video game is seen filling the window, and a streamer is seen in an inset box on the lower right. The game is a Call of Duty World War II style game. The streamer is a young teen, with a curly mop of hair. The streamer looks bored as he reclines in his gaming chair, and he’s speaking to people not seen, responding to their questions by talking about his strategy in the game.
Here are your results
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None of the fake videos in this quiz took more than a few minutes to create. We wrote a pithy prompt to capture the main details we wanted to see and usually included a rough script for what the characters should say. The A.I. software handled the rest: the people, clothing, sound effects, lighting, voices and more.
At times, the A.I. systems spit out unusable videos. There were sometimes obvious signs that the video was not real: in earlier versions of the makeup tutorial, for example, the woman would sometimes apply blush that seemed to glow on her face. By repeating the request a few times, or adding more details to the prompt, we were usually able to solve those issues.
The tools we used also struggled with text that appeared on screen. It would sometimes produce correct words, like in a version of our news broadcast that contained the words “Financial Update.” But letters were often garbled or imperfect, suggesting there are still a few ways to spot an A.I. fake — for now.