The Rise of AI Art: Viral Bee Photo Raises Questions about Authenticity

In the art world nowadays, AI technology is becoming increasingly popular. People find distinguishing between real photographs and AI-generated ones challenging as AI creations get more sophisticated and realistic. We recently came across another beautiful image on social media that sparked curiosity.

Social Media Claim

On April 20, a Facebook user posted a picture of a bee close-up in the group called "Wonderful Nature," with the caption, "Really Cool Macro Shot of a Bee!"

 The post spread and got over 2,000 shares and 11K reactions.

Source | Archive

We also found the same claim of this picture on Twitter. The tweet also went viral with over 500K views so far.

Source | Archive

After conducting a fact-check investigation, it was concluded that the image was not authentic and was generated with AI.

Fact-Check

We conducted a fact-check investigation to verify the authenticity of the image by using the Reverse Image Search feature. As a result, the image was traced back to the Adobe Stock Photos website, where it was labeled as "Generated with AI."

Source: Adobe Stock Photo

Furthermore, we found that the viral post's image did not match the description of a real bee's eye structure. According to an interview with photographer Rose-Lynn Fisher, who used a powerful microscope to capture bees' microscopic structures, bees' eyes are composed of hexagons that echo the shape of the honeycomb. However, upon comparing Fisher's photograph to the image in the viral post, it was observed that there were no hexagons in the eyes of the bee in the viral post's image.

Additionally, we utilized an AI Image Detector Program called Hugging Face to analyze the viral picture. The program's output indicated that the image was likely an artificial creation.

Conclusion

The social media post's claim that the image shows a macro shot of a bee is false, and the image is instead an AI-generated one.