Have you heard the one about the genuine Monet painting that everyone accused of being AI-generated? It might sound like the set-up for a bad joke or sitcom plot, but it really happened this month.
Last week, an X user shared a picture of a painting of waterlilies depicted in Monet's unmistakable style. "I just generated an image in the style of a Monet painting using AI," they said. "Please describe, in as much detail as possible, what makes this inferior to a real Monet painting."
i just generated an image in the style of a Monet painting using AIplease describe, in as much detail as possible, what makes this inferior to a real Monet painting pic.twitter.com/VDJovKOqlzMay 12, 2026
Cue 7M views (and counting) and thousands of replies point out the obvious, nay, unmistakeable hallmarks of an AI generated image. "No cohesion to the depth and color choices!" "No canvas weave!" "It lacks the mess of humanity!" "There's no coherent composition!"
None of which are charges that these commenters would ever level at Monet himself, right? Well, it turns out that's exactly what they were doing. For this isn't an AI image at all – it's a real Monet.
The whole debacle seems to prove a similar point to one I made regarding accusations of AI-generated writing this week. While the proliferation of slop is very much real, the upshot is that anything and everything is starting to look fair game for getting called out. Even a genuine Monet painting.
"This type of gotcha will never stop being funny," one Redditor comments on the incident, while another adds, "They're literally behaving like an AI. Given the premise that the painting is AI-generated, and without verifying that premise, they perform an analysis in such a way that they will always find something, even if it's not there."
If anything, it shows that people saw the 'Made with AI' label before they saw the painting, and their judgement was irreversibly clouded from the off. And perhaps more worryingly, it's a testament to just how believable AI art. People may have been wrong in their specific reasons for calling the painting AI, but thousands of people clearly believe that AI is capable of creating an image that looks highly similar, if not identical, to the work of a master.
