# Can GPT tell us why these images are synthesized? Empowering Multimodal Large Language Models for Forensics

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2504.11686 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.11686/

## Key facts

- Cited by 3 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in MLLM jailbreaks and adversarial robustness, one of 16 directions in Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models.
- Builds on 30 of its 49 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 16 Apr 2025.

## Placed in

- Multimodal LLMs / vision-language models / [MLLM jailbreaks and adversarial robustness](https://mlsanity.com/mllm/mllm-jailbreaks-and-adversarial-robustness/)

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

- [Language Models are Few-Shot Learners](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.14165/) (2020)
- [LLaMA: Open and Efficient Foundation Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2302.13971/) (2023)
- [A Style-Based Generator Architecture for Generative Adversarial Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.04948/) (2018)
- [LLaVA-Med: Training a Large Language-and-Vision Assistant for Biomedicine in One Day](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.00890/) (2023)
- [ImageBind: One Embedding Space To Bind Them All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.05665/) (2023)
- [CNN-generated images are surprisingly easy to spot... for now](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11035/) (2019)
- [Thinking in Frequency: Face Forgery Detection by Mining Frequency-aware Clues](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2007.09355/) (2020)
- [Leveraging Frequency Analysis for Deep Fake Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.08685/) (2020)
- [Chat-UniVi: Unified Visual Representation Empowers Large Language Models with Image and Video Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08046/) (2023)
- [Multi-attentional Deepfake Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02406/) (2021)
- [PandaGPT: One Model To Instruction-Follow Them All](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.16355/) (2023)
- [Detecting and Simulating Artifacts in GAN Fake Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.06515/) (2019)
- [Watch your Up-Convolution: CNN Based Generative Deep Neural Networks are Failing to Reproduce Spectral Distributions](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2003.01826/) (2020)
- [What makes fake images detectable? Understanding properties that generalize](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2008.10588/) (2020)
- [Global Texture Enhancement for Fake Face Detection in the Wild](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.00133/) (2020)
- [Are GAN generated images easy to detect? A critical analysis of the state-of-the-art](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.02617/) (2021)
- [Intriguing properties of synthetic images: from generative adversarial networks to diffusion models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06408/) (2023)
- [Fusing Global and Local Features for Generalized AI-Synthesized Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.13964/) (2022)
- [Unmasking DeepFakes with simple Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1911.00686/) (2019)
- [Image-to-image Translation via Hierarchical Style Disentanglement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.01456/) (2021)
- [Reverse Engineering of Generative Models: Inferring Model Hyperparameters from Generated Images](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.07873/) (2021)
- [Detecting GAN-generated Images by Orthogonal Training of Multiple CNNs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.02246/) (2022)
- [AutoSplice: A Text-prompt Manipulated Image Dataset for Media Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.06870/) (2023)
- [FKA-Owl: Advancing Multimodal Fake News Detection through Knowledge-Augmented LVLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.01988/) (2024)
- [Robust Attentive Deep Neural Network for Exposing GAN-generated Faces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.02167/) (2021)
- [Interpreting and Steering LLMs with Mutual Information-based Explanations on Sparse Autoencoders](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.15576/) (2025)
- [Finding Facial Forgery Artifacts with Parts-Based Detectors](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.10688/) (2021)
- [LangGPT: Rethinking Structured Reusable Prompt Design Framework for LLMs from the Programming Language](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.16929/) (2024)
- [Progressive Feedback-Enhanced Transformer for Image Forgery Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.08910/) (2023)
- [DeVAn: Dense Video Annotation for Video-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.05060/) (2023)

## Built on by (most cited first, 3 of 3)

- [T^2Agent A Tool-augmented Multimodal Misinformation Detection Agent with Monte Carlo Tree Search](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.19768/) (2025)
- [GPT4o-Receipt: A Dataset and Human Study for AI-Generated Document Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11442/) (2026)
- [ForensicsTok: Forensics-Guided Tokenized Modeling for Image Tampering Localization](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.24538/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid development of generative AI facilitates content creation and makes image manipulation easier and more difficult to detect. While multimodal Large Language Models (LLMs) have encoded rich world knowledge, they are not inherently tailored for combating AI-generated Content (AIGC) and struggle to comprehend local forgery details. In this work, we investigate the application of multimodal LLMs in forgery detection. We propose a framework capable of evaluating image authenticity, localizing tampered regions, providing evidence, and tracing generation methods based on semantic tampering clues. Our method demonstrates that the potential of LLMs in forgery analysis can be effectively unlocked through meticulous prompt engineering and the application of few-shot learning techniques. We conduct qualitative and quantitative experiments and show that GPT4V can achieve an accuracy of 92.1% in Autosplice and 86.3% in LaMa, which is competitive with state-of-the-art AIGC detection methods. We further discuss the limitations of multimodal LLMs in such tasks and propose potential improvements.