From Mashable, August 14:
You're going to have to put on your media literacy caps.
AI-generated video has gotten way too good. Scary good, actually. Because of that, our feeds are flooded with suspiciously perfect clips — like impossibly cute animals bouncing on trampolines — racking up millions of views across TikTok, Shorts, and Reels.
With AI content blending seamlessly into our scroll, it's not always easy to know what’s real. So, how can you tell if a viral video is AI-generated?
Truth be told, there’s no perfect checklist for spotting an AI-generated video. “Even if I don’t find the artifact, I cannot say for sure that it’s real, and that’s what we want,” Negar Kamali, an AI research scientist at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, told Mashable Tech Reporter Cecily Mauran last year.
The old giveaways — warped faces, mangled fingers, impossibly smooth textures — are getting harder to catch as the tech improves. Temporal inconsistencies are being cleaned up. But just like with those surreal animal clips captured on fake doorbell cams, the truth still lives in the little details. That’s where the synthetic mask always slips.
The rise of ultra-realistic AI video tools
Part of the challenge is the technology itself. Tools like OpenAI’s Sora and Google Veo 3 can now generate cinematic clips with complex camera movements, realistic lighting, and believable textures. These platforms aren’t just toys — they’re edging into professional-grade filmmaking territory, making the gap between human-shot footage and AI-generated content thinner than ever. This means spotting the "tells" in viral AI videos takes sharper eyes and a bit more skepticism.***
Take the video above, for example, an entire workshop’s worth of bunnies bouncing in perfect rhythm. It's absolutely adorable (and easy to make), but it’s also deeply suspicious when you look a little closer.
With that in mind, here are the best ways to identify AI-generated viral videos.....
....MUCH MORE
