With AI now so mainstream, almost anything can seem suspicious. But one Michigan resident appears to have been right to question a house cleaner hired by their partner’s father. Posting on Reddit under the username Lightbright32_, the OP shared an image of a car crash in r/isthisAI, saying they believed it was artificially generated. According to them, this was the second time the cleaner had canceled on their father-in-law, but allegedly going so far as to fake an accident made the situation especially telling.
Fortunately, Redditors were quick to uncover the truth behind the house cleaner’s alleged car crash: it was, in fact, AI-generated. Lightbright32_’s suspicions centered on the cluster of vehicles behind the damaged Subaru, as well as the car’s surprisingly pristine logo despite the severe damage. More than ten thousand users examined the photo, and several hundred were equally convinced it was fake.
The most compelling piece of evidence was the image’s SynthID watermark, as one highly upvoted comment pointed out. “This is 100% confirmation that the image is fake if anybody is wondering,” wrote another Redditor. They explained that Google’s SynthID can appear even in AI-enhanced images. However, “OpenAI is not attached to any default camera app for any phone, and any time the SynthID watermark for OpenAI is present, that means it was definitely made by AI,” they concluded.
For anyone still confused, Reddit user wildecats did their best to explain how SynthID works, even sharing a visual example of what the “master overlay pattern” looks like after being separated and amplified. Other commenters pointed out numerous additional signs of AI-generated content, including floating trees, bizarre reflections, inconsistent vehicle damage, and more.
Redditors Believe the Michigan Worker Was Trying to Scam OP
Unfortunately, Lightbright32_ did not share any details about how the confrontation between their partner’s father and the house cleaning worker unfolded. Still, several Redditors shared their thoughts on what they saw as the worker’s poor character.
“The stupidity of someone to try and pass this off as real when the odds of a car sustaining a serious collision like this and remaining perfectly in lane is laughable to say the least.”
“They’re probably trying to get money out without doing the work.”
Luckily, thanks to the efforts of internet sleuths, this particular Michigan worker hopefully wasn’t able to get away with collecting money she hadn’t earned—at least not with a poorly AI-generated car crash photo.
