Impact of AI on wildlife photo competitions and conservation

[VinceInMT]

If it’s your visit, the paywall will probably let you read this:

Artificial animals: AI threatens photo comps, conservation

"Imagine someone using the technology to create a photo of several black-footed ferrets — the rarest mammal in North America — frolicking in a park in downtown Missoula. Maybe these little carnivores aren’t so endangered after all?"

missoulian.com

 

[retina_restoration]

If it’s your visit, the paywall will probably let you read this:

Artificial animals: AI threatens photo comps, conservation

"Imagine someone using the technology to create a photo of several black-footed ferrets — the rarest mammal in North America — frolicking in a park in downtown Missoula. Maybe these little carnivores aren’t so endangered after all?"

missoulian.com

Nope, wouldn't let me see it

 

[VinceInMT]

Nope, wouldn't let me see it

Here’s the text:


Artificial animals: AI threatens photo comps, conservation

{moderator edit: we're reviewing the feasibility of reproducing copyrighted content here on the forum. In the meantime, the full text has been taken down.}

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thank you. I was able to read the article directly. I have had similar concerns since the doctored photograph of the shark jumping out of the water attacking a rescue helicopter appeared on the internet years ago.

 

[MartinCrabtree]

So now you cannot even believe what you see. Unfortunate misuse of technology.

 

[pentaxuser]

It would suggest that removal of your Ad Blocker might be enough to read the story but I cannot be sure that following that removal the next message isn't the insistence that you pay a subscription as I decided not to proceed to the removal of the Ad Blocker

pentaxuser

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

AI doesn't help with credibility in media which is already on the wane.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

I got to the website, images and all

With my digital camera, I sometimes use an AI plug-in during post editing to reduce chunky, grainy blobbyness when forced to use a really high ISO taking wildlife photos at dawn or dusk. Don't use it a lot, just enough to smooth out the blobs a bit...if you go too far it looks like something from Max Headroom world.

Would that be considered an AI image, or are they talking about full scale 100% AI concoctions?

 

[VinceInMT]

AI doesn't help with credibility in media which is already on the wane.

The “wane” started many, many years ago. Look at the history of yellow journalism from about 150 years ago. That anyone would buy into any single media source as credible is fool hardy and AI only exacerbates the problem. However, the solution is to enhance one’s critical thinking skills by questioning everything, demanding verifiable evidence (and knowing how to evaluate it), being reasonably versed in the rules of logic, and a curiosity about everything.

In my state, the laws that direct what schools are supposed to teach include critical thinking skills and in my over 2 decades in the classroom my students were acquainted with them daily. I’ve been retired almost a dozen years but think it would be interesting to go back and add what AI has done to increase the importance of this skill set.

 

[MurrayMinchin]

The “wane” started many, many years ago. Look at the history of yellow journalism from about 150 years ago. That anyone would buy into any single media source as credible is fool hardy and AI only exacerbates the problem. However, the solution is to enhance one’s critical thinking skills by questioning everything, demanding verifiable evidence (and knowing how to evaluate it), being reasonably versed in the rules of logic, and a curiosity about everything.

In my state, the laws that direct what schools are supposed to teach include critical thinking skills and in my over 2 decades in the classroom my students were acquainted with them daily. I’ve been retired almost a dozen years but think it would be interesting to go back and add what AI has done to increase the importance of this skill set.

Get back to work...you are sorely needed! Social media algorithm driven echo chamber mindsets need airing out.

My parents had about 6 newsmagazine and newspaper subscriptions from all over the world when I was growing up. Sometimes the clearest perspective is from the outside, looking in.

 

[VinceInMT]

Get back to work...you are sorely needed! Social media algorithm driven echo chamber mindsets need airing out.

My parents had about 6 newsmagazine and newspaper subscriptions from all over the world when I was growing up. Sometimes the clearest perspective is from the outside, looking in.

No way will I be going back to work. Retirement is the best job I’ve ever had.

When I started teaching (in a high school) they offered a class in media literacy in the English department. It was excellent and IMO should be required but as things do, it was dropped for something else. I was guest speaker in the class when they covered radio as the history of that is something I‘ve done a deep dive into for decades.

Yes, news/information from a variety of sources is key. I got rid of television decades ago and have no idea how bad it’s become but have an inkling based on what I hear from others. I’m in the US but regularly listen to the BBC and like how they cover events in the US, frequently explaining to their international listeners the context and background of why things are happening. I used to subscribe to a news magazine, I think it was called World Press Review, that featured coverage from news agencies around the world. The Internet has made it easy to access those news sites these days.

 

[LightCycle]

Artificial intelligence has been known since the late 80s, I don't quite understand why this topic is now being exploited almost everywhere. There's just too much fear-mongering going on here without there being any real serious reason for it. Artificial intelligence can also help simplify things, save time, increase security, and make information faster and easier to access. Of course, it can also be used abusively and for purely commercial reasons, but with a bit of understanding and a critical eye, this kind of thing can be quickly exposed.

 

[retina_restoration]

Artificial intelligence has been known since the late 80s, I don't quite understand why this topic is now being exploited almost everywhere. There's just too much fear-mongering going on here without there being any real serious reason for it. Artificial intelligence can also help simplify things, save time, increase security, and make information faster and easier to access. Of course, it can also be used abusively and for purely commercial reasons, but with a bit of understanding and a critical eye, this kind of thing can be quickly exposed.

It's naive to think that AI tools have not opened a Pandora's Box of possibilities, some of which have immense potential to inflict damage. The vast majority of the population does not have "a critical eye" when it comes to AI generated imagery. A ten minute scroll through Instagram will provide you a plethora of AI art that people label as "photography", but is galaxies away from believable. And yet, most commenters reveal that they have been fooled into thinking they are viewing real photographs of real places/objects. It's insidious, and yet this is one of the more benign effects the technology is having.

 

[BAC1967]

Artificial intelligence has been known since the late 80s, I don't quite understand why this topic is now being exploited almost everywhere. There's just too much fear-mongering going on here without there being any real serious reason for it. Artificial intelligence can also help simplify things, save time, increase security, and make information faster and easier to access. Of course, it can also be used abusively and for purely commercial reasons, but with a bit of understanding and a critical eye, this kind of thing can be quickly exposed.

I think that term is being used very loosely these days. Does a refrigerator really have enough computing power to match human intelligence (don't answer that).

 

[DREW WILEY]

Not only Ai, but Fauxtoshop comps all along. People start thinking they can just concoct scenes at will; so why protect them to begin with? The National Park Service is keenly aware of this and how it risks their own protection and public funding, so developed a program in popular parks encouraging people to bring their whatever camera and just have fun with it, but truly outdoors - young people in particular. Once they get a taste of the real deal, they begin to appreciate it for what it actually is. Of course, millions of people take snapshots of places like Yosemite every year, mostly cellphone selfies with themselves blocking the scenery. But the Park is inviting the creative side, hoping to snare the digitization risk in its own trap.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Artificial intelligence has been known since the late 80s, I don't quite understand why this topic is now being exploited almost everywhere. There's just too much fear-mongering going on here without there being any real serious reason for it. Artificial intelligence can also help simplify things, save time, increase security, and make information faster and easier to access. Of course, it can also be used abusively and for purely commercial reasons, but with a bit of understanding and a critical eye, this kind of thing can be quickly exposed.

Actually Artificial Intelligence existed way before that. Alan Turing conceived of a test to determine whether Artificial Intelligence had been achieved in the 1940's.

 

[DREW WILEY]

More and more, it seems to be the only kind of intelligence left.

 

[LightCycle]

Actually Artificial Intelligence existed way before that. Alan Turing conceived of a test to determine whether Artificial Intelligence had been achieved in the 1940's.

Alan Turing was a mathematician and computer scientist, what he did was merely experiments that proved the exact opposite of what some people, who didn't understand anything about it, constantly feared. In his time, AI was not a common term, as it was only published much later in the computer age. On the other hand, Douglas Richard Hofstadter did much more in-depth studies on this vexed topic. But as long as machines cannot master associative thinking and develop no cognitive learning ability, we don't need to fear them.

Artificial intelligence can also be used very well against fraud and all kinds of manipulative interventions. It always depends on who is behind each program. That's the great thing about the digital world, for every meanness on this level there is certainly a countermeasure and that counts just as much as the fact that despite all the measures there will never be 100% security, for anyone!

 

[loccdor]

So far, I've found that most AI pictures have an AI "look" to them, i.e. they mostly look uncanny and hard to believe. It may change in the future, but right now even most of the sophisticated users aren't generally making pictures that look real, they look "too good" to be believed, if they're of people the faces seem to all have a certain similarity to each other. I think one of the positive consequences of AI imaging will be that in response more people will be seeking something that is unmistakably real.

On the other hand, I've found some positive uses AI, for instance I used it to make hundreds of 512x512 resolution images by prompting it to be "in the style of" one of my favorite artists who passed away. Not to make any finished piece for displaying, but for brainstorming purposes and to see what ideas it could come up with, as its "thinking" seems more open-minded and outside-the-box than a person's. From these small images I could get possible ideas for human-made art projects and I set them to cycle through each other on my PC's desktop, in order to be influenced by them throughout the day.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Alan Turing was a mathematician and computer scientist, what he did was merely experiments that proved the exact opposite of what some people, who didn't understand anything about it, constantly feared. In his time, AI was not a common term, as it was only published much later in the computer age. On the other hand, Douglas Richard Hofstadter did much more in-depth studies on this vexed topic. But as long as machines cannot master associative thinking and develop no cognitive learning ability, we don't need to fear them.

Artificial intelligence can also be used very well against fraud and all kinds of manipulative interventions. It always depends on who is behind each program. That's the great thing about the digital world, for every meanness on this level there is certainly a countermeasure and that counts just as much as the fact that despite all the measures there will never be 100% security, for anyone!

I had a purchase scam used artificial intelligence against me. When I disputed the credit card charge, the scammer claimed that the package was delivered and signed for. But there was no delivery. There was no signature provided mainly because there was no signature. The scammer submitted a shrunken down image of the "tracking" information so that it was almost impossible to read. However when enlarged:

1. It was in Zulu time and not local standard time which the post office uses.
2. It said it was produced by ChatGPT Open AI with its logo, but the post office does not use ChatGPT Open AI.
3. Each tracking location had the Zip Code but not the location name.
4. …

I submitted that information to the credit card company which responded that my money was permanently credited back to me.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Back to the original thread implications - where does it all end? Who needs real wild wildlife and extant ecosystems when you've got zoos? And who needs even zoos when you can digitally re-created things on a viewing screen or "immersive" indoor experience? A downward spiral. We've already got 98% of scenic photography all gussied up like a cheap whore by Fauxtoshop colorization.

Sirius - being of SoCal, you no doubt recall the famous/infamous dam builder Mulholland. He set his sights, and that of the LA Water Dept, even on Yosemite Valley itself. He said that, just as soon as color photography was developed, simply take some shots of the place, put them in a museum, and then dam the whole thing, and "stop the water waste". That did of course happen to nearby Hetch Hetchy Valley in the same era, but by a different water dept (SF).

I can't even stand wildlife documentaries with all the "wild" animals in them wearing tracking collars. Yes, that might be necessary some places for research and protection purposes. But it sure blunts the edge too. Ai might be able to easily remove the collars during the film editing phase for visual purposes; but it still ain't the same thing ....

 

[VinceInMT]

Back to the original thread implications - where does it all end? Who needs real wild wildlife and extant ecosystems when you've got zoos? And who needs even zoos when you can digitally re-created things on a viewing screen or "immersive" indoor experience? A downward spiral. …

I am reminded of this quote from a guy running, successfully, for governor of that western state in 1966:

”I think, too, that we've got to recognize that where the preservation of a natural resource like the redwoods is concerned, that there is a common sense limit. I mean, if you've looked at a hundred thousand acres or so of trees — you know, a tree is a tree, how many more do you need to look at?”

And with immersive AI, I assume to be 3D, photos and videos can be processed for that walk in the forest without leaving one’s home so who needs a forest?

And, while I haven’t verified that it’s AI or PhotoShop, a picture is circulating on local social media of polar bears walking down the street of a nearby small town near the Beartooth Mountains. This because it was -26°F when I got up this morning.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Yeah - the guy who said, "As far as I'm concerned, if you've seen one redwood, you've seen them all", and who carved his initials on pretty trees and logs in public parks in his youth, and in his adulthood on otherwise beautiful rocks on his own property. For someone like him, that's of historic interest; for anyone else, it would be called vandalism. Well, I guess Jean-Michel Basquiat got away with it too.

I have seen Photoshopped pictures of polar bears on desert islands along with a palm tree, or giraffes on icebergs. That's all whimsy of course. But just this week deep fakes of a particular politician and his alleged words have showed up in relation to the election cycle in another country. It will only get worse. But long before, elections were lost or won, and wars begun, by mere published sketches of untrue things.

I've been an uncompromising non-fan of Faux-tographers like Peter Lik, who should publish a book called, Nature's Pimp. Actually, I pity him because he doesn't take the time to actually see and experience anything, and is just after giant postcardy stereotypes as a marketable commodity. You only live once. Why spend it spraying fluorescent paint atop scenes which are kitchy to begin with? The real world is far more beautiful anyway. Bad sadly, that's what so many people take for granted until its already almost gone.

 

[Sean]

The AI pics in the article are really bad. Midjourney v6 is now nearly impossible to distinguish from reality in many cases. We're heading into unchartered territory here.

 

[DREW WILEY]

Indistinguishable at what level? - tiny web or cellphone images, fuzzy TV screens? Hollywood has been visually perfecting it quite awhile already. It's one reason I almost never go to movies anymore. Just looks fake, no matter how big the budget. Of course, you expect that with a teenage blockbuster sci-fi transpiring on some make-believe distant planet. But what about this planet itself? Are gutted barren rainforests going to be instantly restored for PR or political reason with fake "visual proof" that the carnage really isn't all that bad?