Ahmadreza Samadi / Home

Wait, That’s Tech? · Digital literacy

How to check an image claim, AI-made or not

A convincing picture is not proof of its origin—or of the story attached to it. Check the claim around the image before trusting the pixels.

By ·

Updated

At a glance

Check the image’s original context, date and publisher; search for earlier appearances; inspect provenance when available; and corroborate the caption’s important claim. An authentic file can still carry a false story, and missing provenance does not settle whether an image is AI-made.

Why can’t appearance alone verify an image claim?

For my recent carousel, I made three realistic example photographs with AI and asked readers which one was generated. The answer was all three. The examples are demonstrations, not documentary images. Small oddities can prompt a closer look, but no visual clue reliably identifies every AI-generated image. The opposite mistake is just as important: a genuine photograph can appear with a false caption.

Which four steps help check the claim?

  1. Find the original context. Look for the earliest credible post, its date, the publisher and what it actually claimed. A crop or repost may remove vital context.
  2. Search with the image. Google's image-search tools can surface related appearances. An older use with a different caption can reveal recycling, although a search with no match proves little.
  3. Inspect provenance when available. Content Credentials and other origin signals can show how supported media was created or edited. OpenAI notes that metadata can disappear after resizing, screenshots or re-uploads. Missing credentials are not proof that an image is authentic or AI-made; even detection tools have limits.
  4. Corroborate the important claim. Seek independent reporting, other photographs or video, official records, or a direct source that supports what the caption says. The more consequential the claim, the stronger this check should be.

The goal is not to win a game of spotting imperfect hands or strange shadows. It is to establish whether the event, person, place or statement in the caption is supported by evidence. An authentic file and an accurate story are different questions.

See the original demonstration

The Instagram carousel and LinkedIn document show the three explicitly AI-generated example photos and the short verification workflow.

Sources