People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown.
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People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown. It's AI, but people share it in good faith, believing it’s an amazing photo by a human of a real bird in a real moment of time. Meanwhile, humans who have taken amazing photos of real birds captured in real moments of time, like a hummingbird in ballet with a butterfly, get questioned in good faith by people who are tired of being cheated by AI-deceit. The way AI has broken social trust is distressing.
@CiaraNi AI will gouge out trust in almost everything online. Doubt they pondered long on that matter as they all rush to get the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
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@elaterite It may well be manipulated, rather than generated from scratch. Someone in the thread says it's faked out of two separate photos. Either way, it appears to be fake. No verified original real photo source seems to be available. And either way, I am depressed at what all this has has done to trust, as you say. Especially the way it creates mistrust towards human photographers who share some fab photo and get asked 'is that AI?'
@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?
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@CiaraNi As a journalist, I need more and more time only for #factChecking and I find myself no longer believing anything at the first glance unless I can see verifiable original sources. I only follow real photographers, no accounts showing photos that are not their own.
Sometimes, the AI crap is so hard that I react, like that fake about #snails: https://steady.page/en/naturematchcuts/posts/28951404-a41f-4215-ab89-bc35dbc41233What really gets to me is that this #fakes keep circulating, with loads of likes and shares, and they’re right at the top of
@CiaraNi the search results. Fact-checking is being ignored. Yes, I’ve even been told that I must be imagining things, that the AI must be right, otherwise it wouldn’t be there!
At the moment, it’s often enough to drive you to despair: people’s complete disconnect from nature – experiencing the world solely through a screen – is compounded by a massive flood of so-called nature accounts. Not only is our content being misused to train AI (scraping bots are causing websites to crash more and
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@CiaraNi the search results. Fact-checking is being ignored. Yes, I’ve even been told that I must be imagining things, that the AI must be right, otherwise it wouldn’t be there!
At the moment, it’s often enough to drive you to despair: people’s complete disconnect from nature – experiencing the world solely through a screen – is compounded by a massive flood of so-called nature accounts. Not only is our content being misused to train AI (scraping bots are causing websites to crash more and
@CiaraNi more frequently). The algorithms churn out fakes, misinformation. The abyss between people and nature is widening. Professional work is becoming invisible to search engines.
And that's dangerous for nature ... and humans.
I often feel like Don Quixote ... AI slop being the windmills ... -
@ratiogeraet @CiaraNi It is not just that.
Making people distrust their reality is part of the fascist playbook currently in use by many of the worlds despotic regimes.
There is an article (in German) on Republik at the moment that deals with this very issue.
The alt-right benefit from this method much more than left wing groups.
The article is subscribers only but the author has co-written a book on the same subject
Link to the article:
https://www.republik.ch/2026/04/08/wenn-faelschungen-politik-machen
@the_wub Oh yes, and facts about nature/climate are one their (techbro fascists) big targets.
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@monkee It is a shame when photo images that are lovely in themselves get scraped for reuse and misuse by others. We could just enjoy the lovely originals instead!
@CiaraNi The number of scraping bots is meanwhile so immense that you can experience it like Ddos attacks taking your website down.
And to protect yourself ... difficult until impossible. We need urgently strong regulations. -
@FrutigerAero00 That's one of these accounts taking photos from elsewhere ... and many of them are AI-generated!
But people follow the slop ... -
Doesn't this call for some sort of traceable watermarking, or otherwise trustworthy assurance of human originality? While such stupid conditions prevail, for now?
The citationless crap that fills social media is readily regurgitated. I'm sure I'm guilty of it too. I just meant well...
@MattMoose You needed a global trustworthy, independent watermark which can't be forged. (And the laws and regulations).
AI companies fight against exactly this. -
@VerenaRupp Agreed, it did look very real, from a technical point of view.
Please let me know if I am wrong about it being AI or an otherwise manipulated image. If it really is a real photo of a real water crown on a real bird, I want to correct my toot! (All this uncertainty in itself is part of the whole frustrating problem.)
@CiaraNi I bet with you that it's AI. Especially because of physics.
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@FrutigerAero00 @CiaraNi @VerenaRupp
I was also doubting whether it's real or AI (it has to be a quite big droplet for such a solid crown - or maybe it were two?).
I can't confirm the image, but I trust the poster.So, if this is any good, then it - again - shows how important trust is.
@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. -
@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 @stekopf @CiaraNi @VerenaRupp Thats what we need to do in order to stop ai nonsense
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People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown. It's AI, but people share it in good faith, believing it’s an amazing photo by a human of a real bird in a real moment of time. Meanwhile, humans who have taken amazing photos of real birds captured in real moments of time, like a hummingbird in ballet with a butterfly, get questioned in good faith by people who are tired of being cheated by AI-deceit. The way AI has broken social trust is distressing.
@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.
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People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown. It's AI, but people share it in good faith, believing it’s an amazing photo by a human of a real bird in a real moment of time. Meanwhile, humans who have taken amazing photos of real birds captured in real moments of time, like a hummingbird in ballet with a butterfly, get questioned in good faith by people who are tired of being cheated by AI-deceit. The way AI has broken social trust is distressing.
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.
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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.
Says a man using the Internet to express an opinion to a wider audience than he'd ever have reached on a real soap-box.
Curated news sources have and are also used to spread disinformation: "It must be true, it's in the paper".
Before that it was word-of-mouth. And we burned people at the stake because of lies spread this way.
The medium is not the problem. An education system not worthy of the name is the problem. Truly educated people seek evidence and ask questions.
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People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown. It's AI, but people share it in good faith, believing it’s an amazing photo by a human of a real bird in a real moment of time. Meanwhile, humans who have taken amazing photos of real birds captured in real moments of time, like a hummingbird in ballet with a butterfly, get questioned in good faith by people who are tired of being cheated by AI-deceit. The way AI has broken social trust is distressing.
@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. -
"Worst part is there doesn't seem to be any solution."
Agreed. It makes it extra exhausting. There's no end in sight.
@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 -
Says a man using the Internet to express an opinion to a wider audience than he'd ever have reached on a real soap-box.
Curated news sources have and are also used to spread disinformation: "It must be true, it's in the paper".
Before that it was word-of-mouth. And we burned people at the stake because of lies spread this way.
The medium is not the problem. An education system not worthy of the name is the problem. Truly educated people seek evidence and ask questions.
I often think of leaving the internet altogether, and don’t think I would miss it very much. To your points:
Reaching a broader audience on the internet than an ignoramus could on a soapbox is a bad thing when spreading disinformation is the aim. Let’s give Donald Trump a soapbox, instead.
I agree that curated sources can contain disinformation. But the internet is more likely to contain disinformation and spreads it more rapidly and farther than a journal article.
We burned thousands at the stake when disinformation spread by word of mouth. Now we kill hundreds of thousands or millions with weapons and antisocial ideas that are shared among bad people who find and amplify one another on the internet.
I agree with you that a weak educational system, one that teaches poor critical thinking skills, is a big part of the problem. But I think those who spread disinformation love the uneducated and the internet.
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People keep sharing an image of a bird with a drop of water bursting on its head like a crown. It's AI, but people share it in good faith, believing it’s an amazing photo by a human of a real bird in a real moment of time. Meanwhile, humans who have taken amazing photos of real birds captured in real moments of time, like a hummingbird in ballet with a butterfly, get questioned in good faith by people who are tired of being cheated by AI-deceit. The way AI has broken social trust is distressing.
@CiaraNi AI (including generative AI) is the killer of wonder
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I often think of leaving the internet altogether, and don’t think I would miss it very much. To your points:
Reaching a broader audience on the internet than an ignoramus could on a soapbox is a bad thing when spreading disinformation is the aim. Let’s give Donald Trump a soapbox, instead.
I agree that curated sources can contain disinformation. But the internet is more likely to contain disinformation and spreads it more rapidly and farther than a journal article.
We burned thousands at the stake when disinformation spread by word of mouth. Now we kill hundreds of thousands or millions with weapons and antisocial ideas that are shared among bad people who find and amplify one another on the internet.
I agree with you that a weak educational system, one that teaches poor critical thinking skills, is a big part of the problem. But I think those who spread disinformation love the uneducated and the internet.
The Internet has allowed information out where journalists cannot go. It gives a voice to the voiceless. It enables this conversation that would never have happened otherwise.
By it's nature of speed/spread/anonymity, it has enabled us to see the true depravity of humanity — which was always there. You cannot confront what you cannot see.
I reject your likelihood assertion: the right-wing press is pure propaganda.
Banning knives is great, til you have a burst appendix.
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A few people have questioned whether I am right to say that the image of a drop of water bursting on a bird's head like a crown actually is AI-generated. They think I may be wrong. That it is not faked. That it is real.
If I'm wrong, if it really is an unmanipulated photo by a verified human photographer, please do let me know so that I can correct myself and my toot.
(All this uncertainty is part of the whole problem. We all spend so much human time & energy trying to act in good faith.)
@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.
