Boosting Robust AIGI Detection with LoRA-based Pairwise Training

The proliferation of highly realistic AI-Generated Image (AIGI) has necessitated the development of practical detection methods. While current AIGI detectors perform admirably on clean datasets, their detection performance frequently decreases when deployed "in the wild", where images are subjected to unpredictable, complex distortions. To resolve the critical vulnerability, we propose a novel LoRA-based Pairwise Training (LPT) strategy designed specifically to achieve robust detection for AIGI under severe distortions. The core of our strategy involves the targeted finetuning of a visual foundation model, the deliberate simulation of data distribution during the training phase, and a unique pairwise training process. Specifically, we introduce distortion and size simulations to better fit the distribution from the validation and test sets. Based on the strong visual representation capability of the visual foundation model, we finetune the model to achieve AIGI detection. The pairwise training is utilized to improve the detection via decoupling the generalization and robustness optimization. Experiments show that our approach secured the 3th placement in the NTIRE Robust AI-Generated Image Detection in the Wild challenge

NTIRE 2026 Challenge on Robust AI-Generated Image Detection in the Wild

This paper presents an overview of the NTIRE 2026 Challenge on Robust AI-Generated Image Detection in the Wild, held in conjunction with the NTIRE workshop at CVPR 2026. The goal of this challenge was to develop detection models capable of distinguishing real images from generated ones in realistic scenarios: the images are often transformed (cropped, resized, compressed, blurred) for practical usage, and therefore, the detection models should be robust to such transformations. The challenge is based on a novel dataset consisting of 108,750 real and 185,750 AI-generated images from 42 generators comprising a large variety of open-source and closed-source models of various architectures, augmented with 36 image transformations. Methods were evaluated using ROC AUC on the full test set, including both transformed and untransformed images. A total of 511 participants registered, with 20 teams submitting valid final solutions. This report provides a comprehensive overview of the challenge, describes the proposed solutions, and can be used as a valuable reference for researchers and practitioners in increasing the robustness of the detection models to real-world transformations.

Towards Generalized Proactive Defense against Face Swappingwith Contour-Hybrid Watermark

Face swapping, recognized as a privacy and security concern, has prompted considerable defensive research. With the advancements in AI-generated content, the discrepancies between the real and swapped faces have become nuanced. Considering the difficulty of forged traces detection, we shift the focus to the face swapping purpose and proactively embed elaborate watermarks against unknown face swapping techniques. Given that the constant purpose is to swap the original face identity while preserving the background, we concentrate on the regions surrounding the face to ensure robust watermark generation, while embedding the contour texture and face identity information to achieve progressive image determination. The watermark is located in the facial contour and contains hybrid messages, dubbed the contour-hybrid watermark (CMark). Our approach generalizes face swapping detection without requiring any swapping techniques during training and the storage of large-scale messages in advance. Experiments conducted across 8 face swapping techniques demonstrate the superiority of our approach compared with state-of-the-art passive and proactive detectors while achieving a favorable balance between the image quality and watermark robustness.

Big Brother is Watching: Proactive Deepfake Detection via Learnable Hidden Face

As deepfake technologies continue to advance, passive detection methods struggle to generalize with various forgery manipulations and datasets. Proactive defense techniques have been actively studied with the primary aim of preventing deepfake operation effectively working. In this paper, we aim to bridge the gap between passive detection and proactive defense, and seek to solve the detection problem utilizing a proactive methodology. Inspired by several watermarking-based forensic methods, we explore a novel detection framework based on the concept of ``hiding a learnable face within a face''. Specifically, relying on a semi-fragile invertible steganography network, a secret template image is embedded into a host image imperceptibly, acting as an indicator monitoring for any malicious image forgery when being restored by the inverse steganography process. Instead of being manually specified, the secret template is optimized during training to resemble a neutral facial appearance, just like a ``big brother'' hidden in the image to be protected. By incorporating a self-blending mechanism and robustness learning strategy with a simulative transmission channel, a robust detector is built to accurately distinguish if the steganographic image is maliciously tampered or benignly processed. Finally, extensive experiments conducted on multiple datasets demonstrate the superiority of the proposed approach over competing passive and proactive detection methods.

Acceleration and Parallelization Methods for ISRS EGN Model

The enhanced Gaussian noise (EGN) model, which accounts for inter-channel stimulated Raman scattering (ISRS), has been extensively utilized for evaluating nonlinear interference (NLI) within the C+L band. Compared to closed-form expressions and machine learning-based NLI evaluation models, it demonstrates broader applicability and its accuracy is not dependent on the support of large-scale datasets. However, its high computational complexity often results in lengthy computation times. Through analysis, the high-frequency oscillations of the four-wave mixing (FWM) efficiency factor integrand were identified as a primary factor limiting the computational speed of the ISRS EGN model. To address this issue, we propose an accurate approximation method that enables the derivation of a closed-form expression for the FWM efficiency factor without imposing restrictive conditions. Thereby, the scheme proposed in this paper could significantly accelerate the computational speed. Numerical results demonstrate that method in this work could achieve low error levels under high ISRS influence levels, with an MAE of less than 0.001 dB, and no cumulative error over increasing transmission distances, while reducing computation time by over 97%. Furthermore, a parallel computation strategy targeting independent regions within the integration domain is proposed, which could further improve computational efficiency by nearly 11 times.

MMNet: Multi-Collaboration and Multi-Supervision Network for Sequential Deepfake Detection

Advanced manipulation techniques have provided criminals with opportunities to make social panic or gain illicit profits through the generation of deceptive media, such as forged face images. In response, various deepfake detection methods have been proposed to assess image authenticity. Sequential deepfake detection, which is an extension of deepfake detection, aims to identify forged facial regions with the correct sequence for recovery. Nonetheless, due to the different combinations of spatial and sequential manipulations, forged face images exhibit substantial discrepancies that severely impact detection performance. Additionally, the recovery of forged images requires knowledge of the manipulation model to implement inverse transformations, which is difficult to ascertain as relevant techniques are often concealed by attackers. To address these issues, we propose Multi-Collaboration and Multi-Supervision Network (MMNet) that handles various spatial scales and sequential permutations in forged face images and achieve recovery without requiring knowledge of the corresponding manipulation method. Furthermore, existing evaluation metrics only consider detection accuracy at a single inferring step, without accounting for the matching degree with ground-truth under continuous multiple steps. To overcome this limitation, we propose a novel evaluation metric called Complete Sequence Matching (CSM), which considers the detection accuracy at multiple inferring steps, reflecting the ability to detect integrally forged sequences. Extensive experiments on several typical datasets demonstrate that MMNet achieves state-of-the-art detection performance and independent recovery performance.