Interpretation of AI-Generated vs. Human-Made Images

AI-generated content has grown significantly in recent years. Today, AI-generated and human-made images coexist across various settings, including news media, social platforms, and beyond. However, we still know relatively little about how audiences interpret and evaluate these different types of images. The goal of this study was to examine whether image interpretation is influenced by the origin of the image (AI-generated vs. human-made). Additionally, we aimed to explore whether visual professionalization influences how images are interpreted. To this end, we presented 24 AI-generated images (produced using Midjourney, DALL·E, and Firefly) and 8 human-made images to 161 participants-71 visual professionals and 90 non-professionals. Participants were asked to evaluate each image based on the following: (1) the source they believed the image originated from, (2) the level of realism, and (3) the level of credibility they attributed to it. A total of 5152 responses were collected for each question. Our results reveal that human-made images are more readily recognized as such, whereas AI-generated images are frequently misclassified as human-made. We also find that human-made images are perceived as both more realistic and more credible than AI-generated ones. We conclude that individuals are generally unable to accurately determine the source of an image, which in turn affects their assessment of its credibility.