AI-generated images claimed to be of ‘extreme sunburn competition’

Context

Several images of what appear to be people on a beach with red and heavily sunburnt skin are being shared on social media with captions claiming these pictures show an “extreme sunburn competition” in Florida, U.S. Some of them have close-up shots of people, and some show a whole crowd. Reposts and comments range from disbelief at such an alleged event to laughing at the premise. One post on the platform X (formerly Twitter) has garnered 26,400 views at the time of publishing, and a Facebook post has over 3,200 likes, 12,000 comments, and 28,000 shares. The archived posts on Facebook and X can be seen here and here.

 However, these images are AI-generated.

 In fact

We conducted a reverse image search on some of these images, and they led us to similar posts uploaded on Facebook, Twitter, and TikTok. The earliest upload of these photos on the internet can be traced back to a post made on a Facebook group named Cursed AI on August 1, 2023. The group’s about section says it is for sharing “disturbingly beautiful” AI-generated images.

We found no reports of such a competition being held in Florida or anywhere else in the world. The closest reference to such a competition we could find was a BBC report from 2011 which talked about a competition encouraging people to send in photos of their sunburn, which was branded "irresponsible" by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).

 What proves it is AI-generated?

We noted that the photos had been posted on the Facebook group by a user called Will Cartwright. On Cartwright's Facebook page, we saw several posts with obviously AI-generated images. 

Logically Facts contacted Cartwright for more information on these images. "Yes, I created the images and posted them to the Facebook group Cursed AI," Cartwright said, adding that he used Bing Image Creator. "'Extreme competition' posts have been very common in the group, often of situations that would be very uncomfortable, which is what gave me the idea," he explained. He said he used a prompt along the lines of "people competing in an extreme sunburn competition in Florida" on Bing.

We also found posts by different users on the group with captions such as “Extreme eczema competition,” “Extreme lava eating competition,” and “Extreme Yawn Competition.” The corresponding images in those posts have clear signs of being AI-generated.

Further, several visual cues led Logically Facts to conclude these images are AI-generated.

In this specific image below, two men are in focus, and their fingers appear to be unusually short and stubby in places. Meanwhile, the fingers of the man on the right are uneven in length, shape, size, and color. Some of the limbs of people in the background appear blurred. Apart from these clues, the overall rendering of background characters appears to be smudged, and their facial details are blurred.

Similarly, the image below shows two women with fingers of uneven length, shape, and color. The woman on the left appears to have two hands at the end of her left arm. The shadow of the sunglasses on the face of the woman on the right is irregular as well. 

In the image below, the toes of people who appear to be running are virtually non-existent and seem to merge with one another. Again, the people in the background do not seem to have distinct features and look like a jumble of shapes and colors.

In the image below, the facial features are deformed, and there are several missing features, such as hands and fingers.

Logically Facts has previously written about how to spot AI-generated images using visual cues and other tools. 

 The verdict

There was no event in Florida recently where people competed to get “extreme sunburns.” This is a false story shared with AI-generated images. Therefore, we have marked this claim false.

(Update: This story was updated on August 14, 2023, to include Cartwright's response.)