Digital Digging with Henk van Ess

Detectives, Detectors and Deceptions

The post argues that AI detectors alone cannot verify the authenticity of documents or images; they must be paired with human investigators. It illustrates this with a discharge summary, a seven‑fingered hand image, and a video of Netanyahu’s ring, showing divergent detector scores and human judgments. By prompting chat‑bots with neutral, role‑free questions, the author demonstrates how different models surface distinct clues. The central claim is that detectors flag statistical anomalies, while detectives interpret meaning, and only together do they produce reliable conclusions.