according to awork of artResearch by authentication experts found that as many as 40 fake works were being eBay (web auction company) The paintings, including one labeled as Monet and one as Renoir, were sold on the online platform. The expert, Dr. Karina Povich, used advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology to identify the paintings for sale on the online platform and was shocked to discover that many of them had a "high probability" of being "inauthentic."
Dr. Popovich has identified up to 40 fake works so far and says there are more. "The algorithm recognizes all the works as fake," she said. "We viewed some of the images today and there were fake works everywhere. All of the pieces we analyzed proved not to be real art with a negative probability of around 95%. I'm sure this is just the tip of the iceberg."
Source: The image is generated by AI, and the image is authorized by Midjourney
Images identified as fakes after AI testing included a $.9 million (£477,000) Monet titled Forest with Streams; and a $165,000 Renoir described as a study of Claude Renoir.
eBay states on its website, "We do not allow the sale of counterfeit goods or unauthorized reproductions." The Renoir was taken off the market after The Guardian contacted the seller. The seller, who is based in Florida and goes by the eBay username metasis, replied to the Guardian by saying that they do not sell fake works. The seller of the Monet was an eBay user named antiquepage in Millersburg, Ohio, but they did not respond to the Guardian's contact.
Dr. Popovich has written to eBay several times since last year12 to express her concerns. She has contacted the company's offices in the UK, Germany and the US In the emails, she said the platform needs to "take this issue seriously". However, to date she has not received a response. She said:- "I've tried hard to communicate with them but they don't respond. They have a responsibility. They can't pretend they don't see what's going on because it happens too often. There are clear signs that this is a serious problem."
Speaking to The Guardian, eBay said: "The sale of counterfeit goods is strictly prohibited on eBay and we are committed to ensuring that the goods sold on our platform are genuine. We do this through the use of multi-layered AI technology, professionally trained eBay investigators, and buyer protection programs. eBay proactively blocked 88 million postings of suspected counterfeit goods in 2022 and removed 1.3 million items from the platform after review by eBay investigators."
Dr. Popovich said the technology has changed the ability to identify fake work online: "In the past, it was hard to spot these things because you couldn't sample images from the Internet. But with the new technology, it's become very easy. All you have to do is download an image and then within 10 minutes you can learn if it's real or fake. I think people should be warned."