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   Most people now can't separate AI videos from reality, new Runway study   
   reveals  not even its co-founder   
      
   Date:   
   Wed, 21 Jan 2026 20:00:00 +0000   
      
   Description:   
   Runway's latest AI video generator model shows that you may as well flip a   
   coin when deciding if something is AI.   
      
   FULL STORY   
      
   It seems we're through the looking glass when it comes to the verisimilitude   
   of AI-generated videos: in a new test run by AI video company Runway    
   involving more than 1,000 participants, the volunteers were only able to   
   correctly identify AI or real videos 57.1% of the time.    
      
   Considering that guessing at random would land you somewhere around the 50%   
   mark, that's a worryingly low figure. Even Runaway co-founder and Chief   
   Technology Officer Anastasis Germanidis admitted to failing "quite a bit" in   
   the task (via The Information ).    
      
   If Runway's own team members are struggling, then the rest of us don't stand   
   much of a chance. The fake and real clips were set to the same resolution and   
   the same length, and the volunteers had 10 seconds to decide which were   
   showing real people in the real world, and which were made by AI (reflecting   
   the fast pace of social media scrolling).    
      
   The test was commissioned to mark the wider rollout of Runway's new Gen-4.5   
   model, which the company promises offers "unprecedented visual fidelity and   
   creative control", as well as results that are "cinematic and highly   
   realistic".   
      
   'Have a more critical mindset'    
      
   Participants involved in the test fared best when human faces, hands, or   
   actions where involved, with accuracy rates ranging from 58-65% for these   
   clips. Germanidis says that might be because these videos are where 'uncanny'   
   elements are most noticeable, even if the AI videos themselves are still of   
   the same quality as real ones.    
      
   Germanidis is encouraging people to "have a more critical mindset" when   
   weighing up anything they see online. "At this point we're crossing the   
   threshold, and it's hard to tell apart generated from real videos," he told   
   The Information.    
      
   Runway is working on ways to reliably watermark AI output, with its videos   
   already containing metadata identifying them as AI-generated by default. It's   
   something that governments are keen to see implemented, understandably, as    
   the line between the real and the computer-generated disappears completely.    
      
   However, Runway Gen-4.5 isn't perfect yet. Runway says it can still struggle   
   with disappearing objects, causal reasoning (so doors might open before the   
   handle is pulled), and success bias (so poorly aimed kicks still fly into the   
   net in soccer scenes, for example).    
      
   ======================================================================   
   Link to news story:   
   https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/most-people-now-cant-separat   
   e-ai-videos-from-reality-new-runway-study-reveals-not-even-its-co-founder   
      
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