🎮 Learning games and sites · 🧠 Learn how AI works
Which Face Is Real?
By Jevin West and Carl Bergstrom, University of Washington (Calling Bullshit project). Visit Which Face Is Real?
Desk research from the maker's own pages. Not yet tried by us. Checked 2026-10-24.
Which Face Is Real? is a free web game from two University of Washington professors. Each round shows two faces side by side: one is a real photo and the other was made by a computer (StyleGAN). The player clicks the one they think is real and learns right away if they were correct. A 'Learn' page teaches the giveaways, like water-like blotches, odd backgrounds, mismatched glasses or earrings, strange hair and teeth. It is used in classrooms to teach that photos can be faked.
Our take: A quick, free AI-literacy warm-up for kids 10 and up, best paired with a talk about how much better fakes have become since 2019.
Checked in a browser
A browser check on 2026-10-25: what loads, the ads and trackers we saw, and what a child meets first. Not a hands-on test.
| Child safety: 4 out of 5 | No ads or chat; the faces are random adult photos and computer-made faces, and the credit line on the first screen names the 'Calling Bullshit' project, a word some parents will not want. |
|---|---|
| Data: 4 out of 5 | Only Google Analytics and Tag Manager loaded; no ad networks or other trackers. |
| Ease: 5 out of 5 | One plain instruction ('Click on the person who is real') and two big pictures. |
| Cost honesty: 5 out of 5 | Free, with no prompts to pay. |
What we found
- 5 third-party sites contacted: Google Analytics, Tag Manager, Google Fonts, the site's own image storage
- 3 cookies set, none from third-party domains
- 0 ad frames; 9 outbound link sites (University of Washington, the authors' sites, thispersondoesnotexist.com)
- The first screen's credit line includes a swear word in the project name
From the test: A free, ad-free game that teaches kids to spot computer-made faces, with only Google Analytics running; note the mild swear word in the project name.
| Ages it suits | about 10 and up |
|---|---|
| What its terms say about age | No terms or age rule posted; no account needed. (terms) |
| Price | Free. Free (Oct 2026). |
| Works on | Web |
| Account | No account needed |
| Ads | None |
| In-app purchases | None |
| The AI in it | The fake faces were made by StyleGAN, an AI image generator; the game itself uses no AI. |
What's good
- Free, fast and no sign-up
- Teaches concrete clues to spot fakes
- Good discussion starter about online trust
- From university researchers
Watch for
- Made in 2019; today's AI faces lack many of these flaws
- Kids may get overconfident at spotting fakes
- No privacy policy posted
- Site links to a book with a crude word in its title
Data and privacy
Not stated: no privacy policy is posted. The site loads a Google tag (analytics) and asks for nothing from players. Read the privacy policy.
Does it work?
Built by researchers who teach data skepticism; no independent study of the game's teaching effect was found.
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Where these facts come from
- https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/
- https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/about.html
- https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/learn.html
- https://www.whichfaceisreal.com/methods.html
Prices, terms and features change. Nobody paid to be listed, nothing here is an affiliate link, and Peabody never rates itself. Where we and the maker disagree, the maker's own pages are the ones to trust.