GAN-Generated Image Detection With Self-Attention Mechanism Against GAN Generator Defect

With Generative adversarial networks (GAN) achieving realistic image generation, fake image detection research has become an imminent need. In this paper, a novel detection algorithm is designed to exploit the structural defect in GAN, taking advantage of the most vulnerable link in GAN generators - the up-sampling process conducted by the Transposed Convolution operation. The Transposed Convolution in the process will cause the lack of global information in the generated images. Therefore, the Self-Attention mechanism is adopted correspondingly, equipping the algorithm with a much better comprehension of the global information than the other current work adopting pure CNN network, which is reflected in the significant increase in the detection accuracy. With the thorough comparison to the current work and corresponding careful analysis, it is verified that our proposed algorithm outperforms other current works in the field. Also, with experiments conducted on other image-generation categories and images undergone usual real-life post-processing methods, our proposed algorithm shows decent robustness for various categories of images under different reality circumstances, rather than restricted by image types and pure laboratory situation.