# Exposing the Fake: Effective Diffusion-Generated Images Detection

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2307.06272 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.06272/

## Key facts

- Cited by 48 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Image generation, text-to-image and editing, one of 14 directions in Diffusion models.
- Builds on 33 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 12 Jul 2023.

## Placed in

- Diffusion models / [Image generation, text-to-image and editing](https://mlsanity.com/diffusion/image-generation-text-to-image-and-editing/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 33)

- [Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.11239/) (2020)
- [High-Resolution Image Synthesis with Latent Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.10752/) (2021)
- [Denoising Diffusion Implicit Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.02502/) (2020)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling through Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2011.13456/) (2020)
- [Diffusion Models Beat GANs on Image Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.05233/) (2021)
- [Deep Unsupervised Learning using Nonequilibrium Thermodynamics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1503.03585/) (2015)
- [Hierarchical Text-Conditional Image Generation with CLIP Latents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.06125/) (2022)
- [Photorealistic Text-to-Image Diffusion Models with Deep Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.11487/) (2022)
- [Classifier-Free Diffusion Guidance](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.12598/) (2022)
- [Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.00667/) (2022)
- [Generative Modeling by Estimating Gradients of the Data Distribution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.05600/) (2019)
- [Deep Learning Face Attributes in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1411.7766/) (2014)
- [Membership Inference Attacks against Machine Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1610.05820/) (2016)
- [SDEdit: Guided Image Synthesis and Editing with Stochastic Differential Equations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2108.01073/) (2021)
- [DiffWave: A Versatile Diffusion Model for Audio Synthesis](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2009.09761/) (2020)
- [Pseudo Numerical Methods for Diffusion Models on Manifolds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.09778/) (2022)
- [Tackling the Generative Learning Trilemma with Denoising Diffusion GANs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07804/) (2021)
- [ML-Leaks: Model and Data Independent Membership Inference Attacks and Defenses on Machine Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01246/) (2018)
- [DIRE for Diffusion-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.09295/) (2023)
- [Label-Only Membership Inference Attacks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.14321/) (2020)
- [Systematic Evaluation of Privacy Risks of Machine Learning Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.10595/) (2020)
- [On the detection of synthetic images generated by diffusion models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.00680/) (2022)
- [White-box vs Black-box: Bayes Optimal Strategies for Membership Inference](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1908.11229/) (2019)
- [Score-Based Generative Modeling with Critically-Damped Langevin Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.07068/) (2021)
- [Learning Fast Samplers for Diffusion Models by Differentiating Through Sample Quality](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2202.05830/) (2022)
- [Are Diffusion Models Vulnerable to Membership Inference Attacks?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.01316/) (2023)
- [Towards the Detection of Diffusion Model Deepfakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.14571/) (2022)
- [Membership Inference Attacks against Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.03262/) (2023)
- [Practical Blind Membership Inference Attack via Differential Comparisons](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2101.01341/) (2021)
- [Knock Knock, Who's There? Membership Inference on Aggregate Location Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1708.06145/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 48)

- [AEROBLADE: Training-Free Detection of Latent Diffusion Images Using Autoencoder Reconstruction Error](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.17879/) (2024)
- [Detecting Multimedia Generated by Large AI Models: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.00045/) (2024)
- [LaRE2: Latent Reconstruction Error Based Method for Diffusion-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17465/) (2024)
- [FIRE: Robust Detection of Diffusion-Generated Images via Frequency-Guided Reconstruction Error](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.07140/) (2024)
- [On Learning Multi-Modal Forgery Representation for Diffusion Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.23623/) (2024)
- [Bridging the Gap Between Ideal and Real-world Evaluation: Benchmarking AI-Generated Image Detection in Challenging Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.09172/) (2025)
- [ForensicHub: A Unified Benchmark & Codebase for All-Domain Fake Image Detection and Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.11003/) (2025)
- [Turns Out I'm Not Real: Towards Robust Detection of AI-Generated Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09601/) (2024)
- [Bi-LORA: A Vision-Language Approach for Synthetic Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.01959/) (2024)
- [Robust CLIP-Based Detector for Exposing Diffusion Model-Generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.12908/) (2024)
- [Are CLIP features all you need for Universal Synthetic Image Origin Attribution?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.09153/) (2024)
- [Characterizing Photorealism and Artifacts in Diffusion Model-Generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.11989/) (2025)
- [A Survey of Defenses Against AI-Generated Visual Media: Detection,Disruption, and Authentication](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.10575/) (2024)
- [Few-Shot Learner Generalizes Across AI-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.08763/) (2025)
- [Survey on AI-Generated Media Detection: From Non-MLLM to MLLM](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.05240/) (2025)
- [LOTA: Bit-Planes Guided AI-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14230/) (2025)
- [HFI: A unified framework for training-free detection and implicit watermarking of latent diffusion model generated images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.20704/) (2024)
- [Harnessing the Power of Large Vision Language Models for Synthetic Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.02726/) (2024)
- [Explainable Synthetic Image Detection through Diffusion Timestep Ensembling](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06201/) (2025)
- [Evolving from Single-modal to Multi-modal Facial Deepfake Detection: Progress and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.06965/) (2024)
- [Artifact Feature Purification for Cross-domain Detection of AI-generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.11172/) (2024)
- [Improving Interpretability and Robustness for the Detection of AI-Generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.15035/) (2024)
- [UGAD: Universal Generative AI Detector utilizing Frequency Fingerprints](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.07913/) (2024)
- [LATTE: Latent Trajectory Embedding for Diffusion-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.03054/) (2025)
- [A Comprehensive Survey on Diffusion Models and Their Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.10207/) (2024)
- [The Cat and Mouse Game: The Ongoing Arms Race Between Diffusion Models and Detection Methods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18866/) (2024)
- [Passive Deepfake Detection Across Multi-modalities: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.17911/) (2024)
- [Rethinking Individual Fairness in Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.14326/) (2025)
- [Noise-Informed Diffusion-Generated Image Detection with Anomaly Attention](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2506.16743/) (2025)
- [FakeParts: a New Family of AI-Generated DeepFakes](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.21052/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Image synthesis has seen significant advancements with the advent of diffusion-based generative models like Denoising Diffusion Probabilistic Models (DDPM) and text-to-image diffusion models. Despite their efficacy, there is a dearth of research dedicated to detecting diffusion-generated images, which could pose potential security and privacy risks. This paper addresses this gap by proposing a novel detection method called Stepwise Error for Diffusion-generated Image Detection (SeDID). Comprising statistical-based SeDIDStat and neural network-based SeDIDNNs, SeDID exploits the unique attributes of diffusion models, namely deterministic reverse and deterministic denoising computation errors. Our evaluations demonstrate SeDID's superior performance over existing methods when applied to diffusion models. Thus, our work makes a pivotal contribution to distinguishing diffusion model-generated images, marking a significant step in the domain of artificial intelligence security.