AI-Generated Images of Virat Kohli's Sand Statue Shared as Real on Social Media

Tools such as Hive and TrueMedia deemed the images as AI-generated.

Fact-Check: These images are AI-generated. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint) 

A collage showing four images of a child posing with a sand statue of Indian cricketer Virat Kohli is being shared on social media platforms.

• Those sharing wrote that the image “shows beautiful artwork of the child.”

An archive of the post can be found here. 

(Source: Facebook/Screenshot) 

This post recorded 202K likes and 1.3K shares at the time of writing this story. (Archives of similar claims can be found here, here and here.)

Is this true?: The images have been created using Artificial Intelligence (AI)

• AI detection tools such as Hive and TrueMedia both concluded that the images were AI-generated.

How did we find out?: At first, we noticed few discrepancies in the images. The flag's shape in the background is incorrect.

• Secondly, the word ‘Spoot’ on Kohli’s jersey was misspelt.

Here are the few noticable discrepancies in the image. 

(Source: Facebook/Altered by The Quint) 

• We also noticed that a Facebook user, Ramesh Yadav's post's caption, used a hashtag 'photo editing challenge' was added.

Here is a close-up of the hashtag. 

(Source: Altered by The Quint) 

• The user's profile was listed under the 'digital creator' category. We have reached out to the user for further inputs.

What did AI-detection tools says?: Tools such as Hive and True Media gave the following results -

Hive: It concluded that images are 100% AI-generated.

Here is a copy of the results given by Hive.

(Source: Hive/Screenshot) 

TrueMedia: It said that the images presented substantial evidence of “manipulation.”

Here is a copy of the results given by TrueMedia.

(Source: TrueMedia/Screenshot)

Conclusion: It is clear that the images is AI-generated.

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