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Identifying fake cosmetics using AI

groverlab.org/hnbfpr/2026-08-26-ai-counterfeit-cosmetics.html

62 points · 27 comments · 22 days ago · wgrover

groverlab.org/hnbfpr

olwmc22 days ago
This guy's lab does some really cool stuff using really basic ideas:
- https://groverlab.org/research/2022-05-06-candycodes.html
- https://groverlab.org/research/2026-03-19-disintegration-fin...
(edit: Formatting)
hn_throwaway_9922 days ago
In conclusion, I’m pretty negative about AI in general, but this experience made me cautiously optimistic about the role the technology could play in protecting consumers from counterfeit products.
Whaaaattt? How could the author go through such detail and discover that Gemini completely failed in the assigned task (calling all the products fakes when some were and some weren't means that it provided zero correct assistance in this discrimination task) and then conclude "AI could play a helpful role"??? Does the author also conclude that stopped clocks could play a helpful role telling time because the are correct twice a day?
Apparently AI isn't the only thing that hallucinates.
fwipsy22 days ago
Replacement laptop batteries and power adapters have a huge problem with counterfeiting as well. In most cases it's a lot easier to spot because e.g. they rearrange the logos.
Even if these techniques did not produce false positives on genuine products, I suspect that they would not scale well. If counterfeiters realized they were losing a lot of sales through AI detection, they will just use AI to catch the errors themselves.
cmrx6422 days ago
The candycodes mentioned at the end of the article are absolutely brilliant as well. These products have extremely intimate relations with bodies and protecting that chain can avoid a lot of harm.
qgin22 days ago
It's baffling that the counterfeiters don't use the exact same design for the box. At least using the same text. Almost seems harder to make text thats sort of close but not just a straight copy.
drabbiticus22 days ago
Seems likely to be another example of LLMs replicating training corpus. My expectation is that there will be more writing showing why something is counterfeit than why something is genuine, in part because disproving that something is counterfeit from visual/physical clues alone is essentially impossible. Lack of any definitive counterfeit proof is not proof of authenticity, hence why provenance and trust as such integral market factors. For example, even if the packaging were to be identical (e.g. say it's stolen from the factory), this is still not proof that the contained product is the one advertised.
And yes, packaging mistakes with chemical names and typography are quite common for anyone who occasionally pays attention to these things.
trollbridge22 days ago
This is genius - I’ve had good look using AI to identify fakes (or just reproductions) in other areas. It’s surprisingly good, and works fast enough to be usable in a fast paced live auction environment.
tonyoconnell22 days ago
Last week, my wife who grew up in a hilltribe away from the modern world was using Gemini for this exactly. She found out that some face cream she bought was fake. I've been working with AI for the last 8 years. I didn't want to pollute her mind with AI and tech because I love the way she walks around thinking about fruit and trees and nature but she learned how to use AI by herself. She uses it for learning how to do things in "the city" like booking airplanes and hotels and asks Gemini questions all the time.
jan_Sate22 days ago
It got me into thinking, since the genuine product also failed the AI test, what if someone made a fake product with a packaging that passed the AI test? It shouldn't be that difficult. All you need to do is to feed the photo of your fake product into the AI and keep iterating on the packaging.
[deleted]
daft_pink20 days ago
i really would love to see an app we could use to detect these?
my wife bought some cosmetics from amazon that turned out to be counterfeit and the only reason we knew it was because we had previously purchased the correct item from sephora and the bottle was quite different.
i tried to complain to the brand and amazon, but no one really cared and they gave me a refund and kept on selling.
it would be really awesome if there was a way for companies to upload high quality imagery of legit products and they could be used by ai engines to identify fakes.
aashu_dwivedi22 days ago
Counterfeit makers are also going to start using AI to find problems and improve their offering.
hankbond22 days ago
This was a fun experiment but dang the formatting of this post was so hard to read.
Transformanshen22 days ago
This was not quite the way I expected to use AI
cute_boi22 days ago
Thanks, this is how we should use AI, not creating useless slop in a hope to get karma and stars.

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49484925

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Identifying fake cosmetics using AI

groverlab.org/hnbfpr/2026-08-26-ai-counterfeit-cosmetics.html

62 points · 27 comments · 22 days ago · wgrover

groverlab.org/hnbfpr

olwmc22 days ago
This guy's lab does some really cool stuff using really basic ideas:
- https://groverlab.org/research/2022-05-06-candycodes.html
- https://groverlab.org/research/2026-03-19-disintegration-fin...
(edit: Formatting)
hn_throwaway_9922 days ago
In conclusion, I’m pretty negative about AI in general, but this experience made me cautiously optimistic about the role the technology could play in protecting consumers from counterfeit products.
Whaaaattt? How could the author go through such detail and discover that Gemini completely failed in the assigned task (calling all the products fakes when some were and some weren't means that it provided zero correct assistance in this discrimination task) and then conclude "AI could play a helpful role"??? Does the author also conclude that stopped clocks could play a helpful role telling time because the are correct twice a day?
Apparently AI isn't the only thing that hallucinates.
fwipsy22 days ago
Replacement laptop batteries and power adapters have a huge problem with counterfeiting as well. In most cases it's a lot easier to spot because e.g. they rearrange the logos.
Even if these techniques did not produce false positives on genuine products, I suspect that they would not scale well. If counterfeiters realized they were losing a lot of sales through AI detection, they will just use AI to catch the errors themselves.
cmrx6422 days ago
The candycodes mentioned at the end of the article are absolutely brilliant as well. These products have extremely intimate relations with bodies and protecting that chain can avoid a lot of harm.
qgin22 days ago
It's baffling that the counterfeiters don't use the exact same design for the box. At least using the same text. Almost seems harder to make text thats sort of close but not just a straight copy.
drabbiticus22 days ago
Seems likely to be another example of LLMs replicating training corpus. My expectation is that there will be more writing showing why something is counterfeit than why something is genuine, in part because disproving that something is counterfeit from visual/physical clues alone is essentially impossible. Lack of any definitive counterfeit proof is not proof of authenticity, hence why provenance and trust as such integral market factors. For example, even if the packaging were to be identical (e.g. say it's stolen from the factory), this is still not proof that the contained product is the one advertised.
And yes, packaging mistakes with chemical names and typography are quite common for anyone who occasionally pays attention to these things.
trollbridge22 days ago
This is genius - I’ve had good look using AI to identify fakes (or just reproductions) in other areas. It’s surprisingly good, and works fast enough to be usable in a fast paced live auction environment.
tonyoconnell22 days ago
Last week, my wife who grew up in a hilltribe away from the modern world was using Gemini for this exactly. She found out that some face cream she bought was fake. I've been working with AI for the last 8 years. I didn't want to pollute her mind with AI and tech because I love the way she walks around thinking about fruit and trees and nature but she learned how to use AI by herself. She uses it for learning how to do things in "the city" like booking airplanes and hotels and asks Gemini questions all the time.
jan_Sate22 days ago
It got me into thinking, since the genuine product also failed the AI test, what if someone made a fake product with a packaging that passed the AI test? It shouldn't be that difficult. All you need to do is to feed the photo of your fake product into the AI and keep iterating on the packaging.
[deleted]
daft_pink20 days ago
i really would love to see an app we could use to detect these?
my wife bought some cosmetics from amazon that turned out to be counterfeit and the only reason we knew it was because we had previously purchased the correct item from sephora and the bottle was quite different.
i tried to complain to the brand and amazon, but no one really cared and they gave me a refund and kept on selling.
it would be really awesome if there was a way for companies to upload high quality imagery of legit products and they could be used by ai engines to identify fakes.
aashu_dwivedi22 days ago
Counterfeit makers are also going to start using AI to find problems and improve their offering.
hankbond22 days ago
This was a fun experiment but dang the formatting of this post was so hard to read.
Transformanshen22 days ago
This was not quite the way I expected to use AI
cute_boi22 days ago
Thanks, this is how we should use AI, not creating useless slop in a hope to get karma and stars.

news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49484925