Sculpted Messi's clay statue AI-generated

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Cole Praise

Claim: A Facebook user claims a teenager sculpted Lionel Messi using clay.

Verdict: False. Image AI-detecting software tools identified the artwork as an artificial intelligence (AI) product. Moreover, DUBAWA discovered one of the artwork’s sources is a Facebook handle that collects and shares artificially generated items.

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It is a common practice by fine artists to make global celebrities the subject of their artwork, usually to catch their attention and make a handsome payment off them.

In light of this, a Facebook user, Drawing Vd, claims a three-dimensional sculpture of Argentine international and eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi was made by an unnamed teenager using clay.

The almost six-foot-tall bust structure of the 2022 World Cup winner was placed on an island, with the alleged young artist standing beside it.

The post received 186 likes and 35 comments and was shared 27 times as of Friday, Oct. 4, 2024.

In reaction to the post, Facebook users thought the alleged sculptor was extremely good with the clay work.

“This young man is very talented.” Linda Tiernan wore.

“Amazing Talent!” Silvia Heller praised.

However, due to the widespread use of artificial intelligence-generated items and people’s tendency to mislead or misinform the public through such items (see here), DUBAWA decided to verify the originality of the artwork.

Verification

DUBAWA subjected the artwork to some AI-generated image detection tools.

Hive determined the image as likely to be 98% AI-generated or deepfake.

Sculpted Messi's clay statue AI-generated — Screenshot of Hive’s result on the clay work.

The AI-generated image detection tool also highlights a 91 per cent possibility that the clay work was generated using Midjourney, a generative artificial intelligence software that generates images from natural language descriptions.

DUBAWA also used Sightengine, another AI-generated image detection tool, which evaluated the clay work to likely be an AI-generated image.

The AI-generated image-detecting tool evaluated its artificial intelligence content as 99 per cent and the possibility of being created by Midjourney as 99 per cent.

We also discovered that one of the Facebook sources that posted the image is notorious for posting digital items that have an influence of artificial intelligence on them.