Reverse Engineering of Generative Models: Inferring Model Hyperparameters from Generated Images
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Abstract (arXiv)
State-of-the-art (SOTA) Generative Models (GMs) can synthesize photo-realistic images that are hard for humans to distinguish from genuine photos. Identifying and understanding manipulated media are crucial to mitigate the social concerns on the potential misuse of GMs. We propose to perform reverse engineering of GMs to infer model hyperparameters from the images generated by these models. We define a novel problem, ``model parsing", as estimating GM network architectures and training loss functions by examining their generated images -- a task seemingly impossible for human beings. To tackle this problem, we propose a framework with two components: a Fingerprint Estimation Network (FEN), which estimates a GM fingerprint from a generated image by training with four constraints to encourage the fingerprint to have desired properties, and a Parsing Network (PN), which predicts network architecture and loss functions from the estimated fingerprints. To evaluate our approach, we collect a fake image dataset with 100K images generated by 116 different GMs. Extensive experiments show encouraging results in parsing the hyperparameters of the unseen models. Finally, our fingerprint estimation can be leveraged for deepfake detection and image attribution, as we show by reporting SOTA results on both the deepfake detection (Celeb-DF) and image attribution benchmarks.
Key facts. Cited by 58 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 108 of its 159 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 15 Jun 2021.
Builds on
108 of 159 references.
References · 108
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38 more
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50 most cited of 108 All 108 (JSON)
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Citing papers per year: 2021: 1; 2022: 13; 2023: 13; 2024: 20; 2025: 8; 2026: 3.
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- 2025Can GPT tell us why these images are synthesized? Empowering Multimodal Large Language Models for Forensics16 Apr 2025
- 2025LoRAX: LoRA eXpandable Networks for Continual Synthetic Image Attribution10 Apr 2025
- 2024DREAM: Domain-agnostic Reverse Engineering Attributes of Black-box Model8 Dec 2024
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- 2024COMPOSE: Comprehensive Portrait Shadow Editing25 Aug 2024
- 2024Evolution of Detection Performance throughout the Online Lifespan of Synthetic Images21 Aug 2024
- 2024Deepfake Media Forensics: State of the Art and Challenges Ahead1 Aug 2024
- 2024A Survey of Defenses Against AI-Generated Visual Media: Detection,Disruption, and Authentication15 Jul 2024
- 2024Generalized Deepfake Attribution26 Jun 2024
- 2024Uncovering Hidden Intentions: Exploring Prompt Recovery for Deeper Insights into Generated Texts22 Jun 2024
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- 2024Synthetic Image Verification in the Era of Generative AI: What Works and What Isn't There Yet30 Apr 2024
- 2024DeepFeatureX Net: Deep Features eXtractors based Network for discriminating synthetic from real images24 Apr 2024
- 2024Deepfake Detection without Deepfakes: Generalization via Synthetic Frequency Patterns Injection20 Mar 2024
- 2024ProMark: Proactive Diffusion Watermarking for Causal Attribution14 Mar 2024
- 2024ManiFPT: Defining and Analyzing Fingerprints of Generative Models16 Feb 2024
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- 2023GenAI Mirage: The Impostor Bias and the Deepfake Detection Challenge in the Era of Artificial Illusions24 Dec 2023
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- 2023Model Synthesis for Zero-Shot Model Attribution29 Jul 2023
- 2023What can Discriminator do? Towards Box-free Ownership Verification of Generative Adversarial Network29 Jul 2023
- 2023FakeTracer: Catching Face-swap DeepFakes via Implanting Traces in Training27 Jul 2023
- 2023DREAM: Domain-free Reverse Engineering Attributes of Black-box Model20 Jul 2023
- 2023Detecting Images Generated by Deep Diffusion Models using their Local Intrinsic Dimensionality5 Jul 2023
- 2023Single-Model Attribution of Generative Models Through Final-Layer Inversion26 May 2023
- 2023Intriguing properties of synthetic images: from generative adversarial networks to diffusion models13 Apr 2023
- 2023Hierarchical Fine-Grained Image Forgery Detection and Localization30 Mar 2023
- 2023MaLP: Manipulation Localization Using a Proactive Scheme29 Mar 2023
- 2023Can Adversarial Examples Be Parsed to Reveal Victim Model Information?13 Mar 2023
- 2022How Do Deepfakes Move? Motion Magnification for Deepfake Source Detection28 Dec 2022
- 2022GLFF: Global and Local Feature Fusion for AI-synthesized Image Detection16 Nov 2022
- 20222D GANs Meet Unsupervised Single-view 3D Reconstruction20 Jul 2022
- 2022Exploring Disentangled Content Information for Face Forgery Detection19 Jul 2022
- 2022Deepfake Face Traceability with Disentangling Reversing Network8 Jul 2022
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- 2023Intriguing properties of synthetic images: from generative adversarial networks to diffusion modelscited by 121
- 2024Detecting Multimedia Generated by Large AI Models: A Surveycited by 73
- 2023Detecting Images Generated by Deep Diffusion Models using their Local Intrinsic Dimensionalitycited by 44
- 2022GLFF: Global and Local Feature Fusion for AI-synthesized Image Detectioncited by 25
- 2024Lazy Layers to Make Fine-Tuned Diffusion Models More Traceablecited by 2
- 2026DNA: Dual-stage Native Attribution for Generated Image Source Tracingcited by 0
- 2026DNA: Dual-stage Native Attribution for Generated Image Source Tracing15 Jul 2026
- 2024Lazy Layers to Make Fine-Tuned Diffusion Models More Traceable1 May 2024
- 2024Detecting Multimedia Generated by Large AI Models: A Survey22 Jan 2024
- 2023Detecting Images Generated by Deep Diffusion Models using their Local Intrinsic Dimensionality5 Jul 2023
- 2023Intriguing properties of synthetic images: from generative adversarial networks to diffusion models13 Apr 2023
- 2022GLFF: Global and Local Feature Fusion for AI-synthesized Image Detection16 Nov 2022
- 2022Self-supervised Learning of Adversarial Example: Towards Good Generalizations for Deepfake Detectioncited by 172
- 2023Hierarchical Fine-Grained Image Forgery Detection and Localizationcited by 134
- 2022Fusing Global and Local Features for Generalized AI-Synthesized Image Detectioncited by 88
- 2021CoNeRF: Controllable Neural Radiance Fieldscited by 65
- 2024Community Forensics: Using Thousands of Generators to Train Fake Image Detectorscited by 50
- 2022RepMix: Representation Mixing for Robust Attribution of Synthesized Imagescited by 39
- 2022Exploring Disentangled Content Information for Face Forgery Detectioncited by 36
- 2022Proactive Image Manipulation Detectioncited by 35
- 2024AI-Face: A Million-Scale Demographically Annotated AI-Generated Face Dataset and Fairness Benchmarkcited by 28
- 2023MaLP: Manipulation Localization Using a Proactive Schemecited by 26
- 2025Seeing What Matters: Generalizable AI-generated Video Detection with Forensic-Oriented Augmentationcited by 23
- 2024ManiFPT: Defining and Analyzing Fingerprints of Generative Modelscited by 18
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- 2026Learning Semantic Inpainting for Animatable Gaussian Head Avatars29 Sep 2026
- 2026Who Generated This 3D Asset? Learning Source Attribution for Generative 3D Models18 May 2026
- 2025Scaling Up AI-Generated Image Detection with Generator-Aware Prototypes15 Dec 2025
- 2025Few-Shot Synthetic Image Attribution: Identifying Unseen Generators with Limited Samples30 Sep 2025
- 2025Is It Certainly a Deepfake? Reliability Analysis in Detection & Generation Ecosystem22 Sep 2025
- 2025Webly-Supervised Image Manipulation Localization via Category-Aware Auto-Annotation28 Aug 2025
- 2025Seeing What Matters: Generalizable AI-generated Video Detection with Forensic-Oriented Augmentation20 Jun 2025
- 2025FAME: A Lightweight Spatio-Temporal Network for Model Attribution of Face-Swap Deepfakes13 Jun 2025
- 2025LoRAX: LoRA eXpandable Networks for Continual Synthetic Image Attribution10 Apr 2025
- 2024DREAM: Domain-agnostic Reverse Engineering Attributes of Black-box Model8 Dec 2024
- 2024Passive Deepfake Detection Across Multi-modalities: A Comprehensive Survey26 Nov 2024
- 2024Community Forensics: Using Thousands of Generators to Train Fake Image Detectors6 Nov 2024
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