People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown.
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@CiaraNi @elaterite Darn, my pride has taken a blow—no one has ever accused one of my photos as done by AI. Maybe I need to crank up the saturation slider next time?
@bosquebill @elaterite Next time you post a lovely photo of a dragonfly in the desert, put a wee bowler hat on it and I will jump in and yell "Oi! AI!"
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@FrutigerAero00 That's one of these accounts taking photos from elsewhere ... and many of them are AI-generated!
But people follow the slop ...@NatureMC @FrutigerAero00 That was my impression too.
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@MattMoose You needed a global trustworthy, independent watermark which can't be forged. (And the laws and regulations).
AI companies fight against exactly this.@NatureMC @MattMoose That would be great, a watermark like that.
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@CiaraNi I bet with you that it's AI. Especially because of physics.
@NatureMC @VerenaRupp I honestly don't doubt that it is AI. But as the question kept coming, I want to confirm that I absolutely will correct myself if I was wrong. Nobody can tell how to 100% verify that an image was not manipulated. The proof will be disproof - if someone can share a verified, sourced link to the original real photo. Which nobody can.
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@stekopf That posting account takes only photos from elsewhere (not their owns), from often not trustful sources in social media ... and many of these photos are AI-generated. (I blocked the account for exactly that).
That "quoted" X-account is one of these "generated" pseudo-nature accounts. I can't see more of X but I'm nearly sure that the whole account works with AI.@NatureMC Photos not their own and many seem AI-generated - I saw that too when I looked after seeing the water-crown bird image. I blocked too then.
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@CiaraNi Of course, as you know, the threat of AI is much more serious than fake bird photos. In the USA, right-wing groups are using deep fakes of nonexistent persons from various occupations and socioeconomic backgrounds to express support for antisocial politicians and their policies. Some have even called deep fakes a threat to civilization, because they keep us from knowing what is true and what is false. I would go even further and say the internet has facilitated the spread of disinformation and propaganda that harms most people in ways that were less common when we relied on curated news sources. On the whole, I think the internet is harmful.
@JosephMeyer Yes, the consquences are serious and immediate and are happening already. The sheer scale of it is astonishing and hard to fight against.
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We used to say, "photographs don't lie."
We used to say, "it must be true, it's in the paper."
We used to say, "he wouldn't be deceitful, he's a gentleman."AI / deep-fakes are just the next generation of disinformation.
Disinformation: the fifth horseman of the apocalypse.
"AI / deep-fakes are just the next generation of disinformation" - I'm reluctant to say it's 'just' that, because this is happening on a whole other scale with ever more serious consequences. I am reluctant to see us normalise it as 'just the next step', like we're shrugging because 'whatcha gonna do, it's unstoppable'.
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@CiaraNi Well, I did a little research for you (I don't have the software for a detailed one).
I found the image only on social media, only on accounts I doubt.
Some name a "photographer Lee Schofer" but I couldn't find any photographer with that name, neither a website of a nature photographer with this name. Seems LLM, too.But I found a *real* photographer/book author, Carl Bovis, showing the trick with AI here: https://x.com/CarlBovisNature/status/2046549710735905168
You can find even more robin slop.
It's 99,98% #AIslop.@NatureMC Ah, thank you! That seems very clear indeed. And I know the photographer Carl Bovis by name and quality of work - a trusted source. Exactly one of the kind of great photographers who probably gets asked if his images are AI, which is awful for him, and also awful for the people asking - they are only doing so because AI has damaged their usual trust.
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@CiaraNi
Actually there is.AI is a tool like others.
Now the AI hype (centered on the USA) is an ugly scam, but luckily it seems to lose a bit steam. Or as I call it the times of free handouts from your drug dealer are coming to an end. Claude code has been dropped from pro, max users suddenly running out of quota. GitHub stopping signups and rumours that they want charge by the token.
Three good times where the bullshit machines were free are coming to an end.
@stveje -
@CiaraNi AI (including generative AI) is the killer of wonder
@Catwoman69y2k It truly is.
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@CiaraNi I fell for AI images several times and it has brought me to a place where I question everything that isn't from one of the photographers I know. I hate all of this.
@DrJLecter Seconded, agreed, yes - this is how I feel too.
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@CiaraNi As a photographer who has experimented with water drop photography, I instantly knew that image was AI. I was surprised it was being passed off as a real image, although in this day and age I probably shouldn't have been.
It is not possible to do water drop photography casually, as shutter speed alone even on a really high end camera is not enough to freeze the action. It requires the use of a strobe flash in a darkened room to stop the drops.
@955_36 Thanks for this from-experience knowledge. It is a pity the quality of the manipulated image was high enough on a quick-scrolling timeline for many to fall for it.
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@starlily Yes, I know
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@yacc143 @CiaraNi Alas, just because something is no longer free doesn't mean people won't use it, especially people with more money than good sense/scruples. Or that the technology itself just goes away. And all the slop that's already been generated will continue floating around, getting into everything like digital micro plastic and forever chemicals.
Even if the bubble pops tomorrow, we haven't seen the end of this. Not even close.
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@CiaraNi I think the people boosting the post are acting in good faith... the poster however doubled down when called out
@jackeric Yes, I said myself they are acting in good faith. Responsibility lies with the people who post unverified images or who post images that they know are manipulated or fake. Especially if they try to imply in the accompanying text that it's real.
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@CiaraNi It's the same for software. The amount of AI vibe coded slop will make people question software crafted over many years
@soundsafari A good and depressing comparison - yes, I can see that happening too.
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@stekopf Look here: https://mastodon.online/@NatureMC/116454180399370710
BTW, fact-checking is part of my profession.
@NatureMC Thanks for great fact-checking - including for taking the time both to do it and share it.
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@CiaraNi My disappointment is immeasurable and my day is ruined. And yeah, I'm scared that it'll make me more skeptical of even the real things
@robinsyl Same here. It saddens me that we are being manipulated into becoming sceptical, that we can't even just assume a basic level of trust when we see a nice moment of joy shared online.
