# AI-Generated Video Detection via Perceptual Straightening

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.00583 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.00583/

## Key facts

- Cited by 34 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 71 of its 107 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 1 Jul 2025.

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 71)

- [Attention Is All You Need](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1706.03762/) (2017)
- [Deep Residual Learning for Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1512.03385/) (2015)
- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [An Image is Worth 16x16 Words: Transformers for Image Recognition at Scale](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2010.11929/) (2020)
- [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)
- [Very Deep Convolutional Networks for Large-Scale Image Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1409.1556/) (2014)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [DINOv2: Learning Robust Visual Features without Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2304.07193/) (2023)
- [Communication-Efficient Learning of Deep Networks from Decentralized Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1602.05629/) (2016)
- [Bootstrap your own latent: A new approach to self-supervised Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2006.07733/) (2020)
- [Quo Vadis, Action Recognition? A New Model and the Kinetics Dataset](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1705.07750/) (2017)
- [Deep Learning with Differential Privacy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1607.00133/) (2016)
- [Stable Video Diffusion: Scaling Latent Video Diffusion Models to Large Datasets](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2311.15127/) (2023)
- [SlowFast Networks for Video Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1812.03982/) (2018)
- [Make-A-Video: Text-to-Video Generation without Text-Video Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.14792/) (2022)
- [Is Space-Time Attention All You Need for Video Understanding?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2102.05095/) (2021)
- [World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1803.10122/) (2018)
- [ImageNet-trained CNNs are biased towards texture; increasing shape bias improves accuracy and robustness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.12231/) (2018)
- [Video Swin Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.13230/) (2021)
- [CogVideo: Large-scale Pretraining for Text-to-Video Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15868/) (2022)
- [Multiscale Vision Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.11227/) (2021)
- [WorldSimBench: Towards Video Generation Models as World Simulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.18072/) (2024)
- [TSM: Temporal Shift Module for Efficient Video Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1811.08383/) (2018)
- [CNN-generated images are surprisingly easy to spot... for now](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1912.11035/) (2019)
- [Text2Video-Zero: Text-to-Image Diffusion Models are Zero-Shot Video Generators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.13439/) (2023)
- [Muse: Text-To-Image Generation via Masked Generative Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2301.00704/) (2023)
- [X3D: Expanding Architectures for Efficient Video Recognition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2004.04730/) (2020)
- [VideoCrafter2: Overcoming Data Limitations for High-Quality Video Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2401.09047/) (2024)
- [Can Spatiotemporal 3D CNNs Retrace the History of 2D CNNs and ImageNet?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1711.09577/) (2017)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [LeWorldModel: Stable End-to-End Joint-Embedding Predictive Architecture from Pixels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.19312/) (2026)
- [Temporal Straightening for Latent Planning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.12231/) (2026)
- [Skyra: AI-Generated Video Detection via Grounded Artifact Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15693/) (2025)
- [Sub-JEPA: Subspace Gaussian Regularization for Stable End-to-End World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.09241/) (2026)
- [VideoVeritas: AI-Generated Video Detection via Perception Pretext Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08828/) (2026)
- [Subspace-Decomposed JEPAs: Disentangling Progression and Content in Latent World Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.31111/) (2026)
- [Training-free Detection of Generated Videos via Spatial-Temporal Likelihoods](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.15026/) (2026)
- [Simplicity Prevails: The Emergence of Generalizable AIGI Detection in Visual Foundation Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.01738/) (2026)
- [The Observer Effect in World Models: Invasive Adaptation Corrupts Latent Physics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.12218/) (2026)
- [GEOPHYS: The Geometry of Physical Plausibility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.20707/) (2026)
- [MPF-Net: Exposing High-Fidelity AI-Generated Video Forgeries via Hierarchical Manifold Deviation and Micro-Temporal Fluctuations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.21408/) (2026)
- [CMTA: Leveraging Cross-Modal Temporal Artifacts for Generalizable AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.00630/) (2026)
- [SPLIT: Training-Free AI-Generated and Partially Edited Video Detection via Spatial Patch-Level Incoherence and Temporal Roughness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.02886/) (2026)
- [SafeGuard: A Multi-Agent Perception-Reasoning Framework for Social-Risk AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.03069/) (2026)
- [Rethinking the Readout: Unlocking Video Backbones for AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.15321/) (2026)
- [Revealing Artifacts via Noise Amplification: A Novel Perspective for AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.16742/) (2026)
- [Auditing Generalization in AI-Generated Video Detection: A Six-Control Protocol and the VidAudit Toolkit](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.31004/) (2026)
- [Dataset Biases and Shortcut Learning in Motion-Based AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.00948/) (2026)
- [SphereVideo: Prototype-anchored Hyperspherical Boundary for Continual AI-generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.01334/) (2026)
- [Improving Temporal Consistency and Fidelity at Inference-time in Perceptual Video Restoration by Zero-shot Image-based Diffusion Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25420/) (2025)
- [EA-Swin: An Embedding-Agnostic Swin Transformer for AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.17260/) (2026)
- [Pixel-level Scene Understanding in One Token: Visual States Need What-is-Where Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.13904/) (2026)
- [FederatedFactory: Generative One-Shot Learning for Extremely Non-IID Distributed Scenarios](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.16370/) (2026)
- [Moir'e Video Authentication: A Physical Signature Against AI Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.01654/) (2026)
- [Detecting AI-Generated Videos with Spiking Neural Networks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.05895/) (2026)
- [From AI-Generated Content to Agentic Action: Security and Safety Threats in Generative AI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16471/) (2026)
- [RADAR: Relative Angular Divergence Across Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.23028/) (2026)
- [Explainable Forensics of Manipulated Segments in Untrimmed Long Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.02402/) (2026)
- [Detect Early, Escalate Rarely: Anytime Detection of AI-Generated Video from the Compressed Bitstream](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.19476/) (2026)
- [FakeI2V-Bench: Benchmarking the Applicability of Image-level Deepfake Detectors for Deepfake Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.03096/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid advancement of generative AI enables highly realistic synthetic videos, posing significant challenges for content authentication and raising urgent concerns about misuse. Existing detection methods often struggle with generalization and capturing subtle temporal inconsistencies. We propose ReStraV(Representation Straightening Video), a novel approach to distinguish natural from AI-generated videos. Inspired by the "perceptual straightening" hypothesis -- which suggests real-world video trajectories become more straight in neural representation domain -- we analyze deviations from this expected geometric property. Using a pre-trained self-supervised vision transformer (DINOv2), we quantify the temporal curvature and stepwise distance in the model's representation domain. We aggregate statistics of these measures for each video and train a classifier. Our analysis shows that AI-generated videos exhibit significantly different curvature and distance patterns compared to real videos. A lightweight classifier achieves state-of-the-art detection performance (e.g., 97.17% accuracy and 98.63% AUROC on the VidProM benchmark), substantially outperforming existing image- and video-based methods. ReStraV is computationally efficient, it is offering a low-cost and effective detection solution. This work provides new insights into using neural representation geometry for AI-generated video detection.