Look, AI is fun to play with, can produce beautiful pictures, if you work with it enough.

But it’s not real.

It needs to be labeled as such.

I very, extremely, especially, dislike the fake pictures used behind scientific discussions. Even, or maybe especially, science for non-scientists. Undiscerning people who see a pretty backdrop, may not realize it’s not real, not something from a NASA probe.

Anything scientific needs to not be “made up.” No, not even for an eye catching backdrop.

NASA has lots of pretty pictures. Use them!

And the fad I’ve been running into, “Would you like [insert Brand Name AI] to summarize this article?” popping up on my screen.

No. I’m here to read the article. Get lost.

And I’m a big horse fan. *sigh* all the fake pictures. Rarely labeled as such. Triplet foals? No. Never. Today’s beauty was purporting to be a horse auction. An Akel Tek stallion selling for 14 million . . . horse had the right color and build and So Much Hair! Uh, no. This rare desert breed is noted for thin manes and clean legs.  And no, the price is an order of magnitude out of line.

And then there the erosion of trust. When everything has to be eyed skeptically and analyzed.

When the Aliens land on the White House lawn and demand our surrender . . . we’ll all laugh and point out what we think are the giveaways of AI. “Well done, though, really.”

We’re doomed.

And now I’ll go back and attempt to write four parallel stories that connect now and then, and try to not give any too many spoilers.

12 responses to “Don’t Trust your Lying Eyes!”

  1. I’ll be honest, I see this as a feature, not a bug. The faster people realize they’re being lied to by practically everybody, the better.

    1. I’d much rather have a requirement to label AI generated art as such, AND actual picture with sources, so that there’s a clear dividing line. So much of a civil society is based on trust, that I’d rather not undermine that.

      1. And replying to myself–I’m bad about attributions and sources, and really need to work on that!

      2. I have no problem with such a requirement, I just don’t think it’s gojng to meaningfully fux anything. remember that the media have been lying with pictures pretty much since they had pictures. Why am I supposed to be worried about the ability to lie with pictures suddenly being democratized to the point where Joe Blow and Jane Blow can do it too?

    2. I agree with you. My take is here. But maybe I’m just optimistic. Hey, I’m old, I can afford to be optimistic. I’ll die and it’ll be somebody else’s problem. 🙂

  2. Oddly enough, I also object to fake pictures not labeled…. which is why most of the pretty photos from NASA aren’t acceptable.

    They’re visual representations of selected readings with editing to make them stunning– even less real than the “northern lights” photos I took two years back on my phone, where here was a “maybe the sky is odd, maybe it isn’t” look to the eye, and brilliant swirls of green on the camera.

  3. I have a few pics of the Canada geese in my pond the other day, it looks like they are paper cutouts pasted onto the pond. Good old optical delusion. ~:D

    These days there’s so much AI on everything I just shrug. I’m sure it’ll settle down eventually, in the meantime it’s safe to assume I’m either being marketed or propagandized.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Trending