# VidGuard-R1: AI-Generated Video Detection and Explanation via Reasoning MLLMs and RL

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.02282 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.02282/

## Key facts

- Cited by 15 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Multimodal reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 21 of its 63 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 2 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Multimodal reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/multimodal-reasoning/)
- LLM alignment / RLHF / preference optimisation / [Diffusion and multimodal model alignment](https://mlsanity.com/alignment/diffusion-and-multimodal-model-alignment/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Qwen2.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13923/) (2025)
- [CogVideoX: Text-to-Video Diffusion Models with An Expert Transformer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06072/) (2024)
- [Qwen-VL: A Versatile Vision-Language Model for Understanding, Localization, Text Reading, and Beyond](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.12966/) (2023)
- [HunyuanVideo: A Systematic Framework For Large Video Generative Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.03603/) (2024)
- [CogVideo: Large-scale Pretraining for Text-to-Video Generation via Transformers](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.15868/) (2022)
- [ModelScope Text-to-Video Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.06571/) (2023)
- [LLaVA-Video: Video Instruction Tuning With Synthetic Data](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02713/) (2024)
- [VideoCrafter1: Open Diffusion Models for High-Quality Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19512/) (2023)
- [Video-R1: Reinforcing Video Reasoning in MLLMs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.21776/) (2025)
- [Swap Attention in Spatiotemporal Diffusions for Text-to-Video Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.10874/) (2023)
- [UniFormerV2: Spatiotemporal Learning by Arming Image ViTs with Video UniFormer](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.09552/) (2022)
- [FakeShield: Explainable Image Forgery Detection and Localization via Multi-modal Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.02761/) (2024)
- [DeMamba: AI-Generated Video Detection on Million-Scale GenVideo Benchmark](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.19707/) (2024)
- [Deepfake Generation and Detection: A Benchmark and Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.17881/) (2024)
- [Use of a Capsule Network to Detect Fake Images and Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1910.12467/) (2019)
- [Mora: Enabling Generalist Video Generation via A Multi-Agent Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.13248/) (2024)
- [SafeWatch: An Efficient Safety-Policy Following Video Guardrail Model with Transparent Explanations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.06878/) (2024)
- [GenVidBench: A 6-Million Benchmark for AI-Generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.11340/) (2025)
- [Turns Out I'm Not Real: Towards Robust Detection of AI-Generated Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09601/) (2024)
- [How Far are AI-generated Videos from Simulating the 3D Visual World: A Learned 3D Evaluation Approach](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.19568/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 15 of 15)

- [Skyra: AI-Generated Video Detection via Grounded Artifact Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.15693/) (2025)
- [VideoVeritas: AI-Generated Video Detection via Perception Pretext Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2602.08828/) (2026)
- [EvoGuard: An Extensible Agentic RL-based Framework for Practical and Evolving AI-Generated Image Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.17343/) (2026)
- [SpecSem-Net: Integrating Spectral and Semantic Features for Robust AI-generated Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17311/) (2026)
- [Video as Natural Augmentation: Towards Unified AI-Generated Image and Video Detection](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.21977/) (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)
- [Detecting AI-Generated Video: A Vision-Language Dual-View Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10787/) (2026)
- [VidForensics-M1: Meta-Detection Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Temporal Grounding for AI-Generated Video Forensics](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.11201/) (2026)
- [SafeLens: Deliberate and Efficient Video Guardrails with Fast-and-Slow Screening](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.17610/) (2026)
- [G2VD: Generalizable AI-Generated Video Detection via Counterfactual Intervention and Causal Disentanglement](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.04607/) (2026)
- [Detect Early, Escalate Rarely: Anytime Detection of AI-Generated Video from the Compressed Bitstream](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.19476/) (2026)
- [MotionPhys: Detecting AI-Generated Videos via Physical Consistency of Optical-Flow Trajectories](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.20770/) (2026)
- [TUE-Detector: A Tool-Using Expert MLLM-Based Detector for AI-Generated Videos](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.30704/) (2026)
- [Trustworthy synthetic visual media: Evidence across the media lifecycle](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.34232/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

The rapid proliferation of AI-generated video necessitates robust detection tools that offer both high accuracy and human-interpretable explanations. While existing MLLM-based detectors rely on supervised fine-tuning (SFT) or direct preference optimization (DPO), these methods are often bottlenecked by static, pre-labeled datasets that fail to capture the evolving, multi-step physical inconsistencies of modern generative models. To bridge this gap, we introduce VidGuard-R1, the first video authenticity detector to utilize group relative policy optimization (GRPO). Moving beyond passive preference matching, VidGuard-R1 employs a reinforcement learning framework that encourages the model to explore and rank multiple reasoning paths. By introducing specialized reward models for temporal stability and diffusion-aware complexity, we incentivize the model to discover 'physics-grounded' artifacts. Our contributions include: (1) a curated dataset of 140,000 challenging real/fake video pairs; (2) a GRPO-based training paradigm that achieves state-of-the-art zero-shot performance; and (3) a reasoning-first architecture that provides precise, verifiable rationales for its forensic judgments. Project website: https://vidguard-r1.github.io/.