NS-Net: Decoupling CLIP Semantic Information through NULL-Space for Generalizable AI-Generated Image Detection

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Yan, Jiazhen, Wang, Fan, Jiang, Weiwei, Li, Ziqiang, Fu, Zhangjie
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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author Yan, Jiazhen
Wang, Fan
Jiang, Weiwei
Li, Ziqiang
Fu, Zhangjie
author_facet Yan, Jiazhen
Wang, Fan
Jiang, Weiwei
Li, Ziqiang
Fu, Zhangjie
contents The rapid progress of generative models, such as GANs and diffusion models, has facilitated the creation of highly realistic images, raising growing concerns over their misuse in security-sensitive domains. While existing detectors perform well under known generative settings, they often fail to generalize to unknown generative models, especially when semantic content between real and fake images is closely aligned. In this paper, we revisit the use of CLIP features for AI-generated image detection and uncover a critical limitation: the high-level semantic information embedded in CLIP's visual features hinders effective discrimination. To address this, we propose NS-Net, a novel detection framework that leverages NULL-Space projection to decouple semantic information from CLIP's visual features, followed by contrastive learning to capture intrinsic distributional differences between real and generated images. Furthermore, we design a Patch Selection strategy to preserve fine-grained artifacts by mitigating semantic bias caused by global image structures. Extensive experiments on an open-world benchmark comprising images generated by 40 diverse generative models show that NS-Net outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving a 7.4\% improvement in detection accuracy, thereby demonstrating strong generalization across both GAN- and diffusion-based image generation techniques.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2508_01248
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle NS-Net: Decoupling CLIP Semantic Information through NULL-Space for Generalizable AI-Generated Image Detection
Yan, Jiazhen
Wang, Fan
Jiang, Weiwei
Li, Ziqiang
Fu, Zhangjie
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
The rapid progress of generative models, such as GANs and diffusion models, has facilitated the creation of highly realistic images, raising growing concerns over their misuse in security-sensitive domains. While existing detectors perform well under known generative settings, they often fail to generalize to unknown generative models, especially when semantic content between real and fake images is closely aligned. In this paper, we revisit the use of CLIP features for AI-generated image detection and uncover a critical limitation: the high-level semantic information embedded in CLIP's visual features hinders effective discrimination. To address this, we propose NS-Net, a novel detection framework that leverages NULL-Space projection to decouple semantic information from CLIP's visual features, followed by contrastive learning to capture intrinsic distributional differences between real and generated images. Furthermore, we design a Patch Selection strategy to preserve fine-grained artifacts by mitigating semantic bias caused by global image structures. Extensive experiments on an open-world benchmark comprising images generated by 40 diverse generative models show that NS-Net outperforms existing state-of-the-art methods, achieving a 7.4\% improvement in detection accuracy, thereby demonstrating strong generalization across both GAN- and diffusion-based image generation techniques.
title NS-Net: Decoupling CLIP Semantic Information through NULL-Space for Generalizable AI-Generated Image Detection
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.01248