AI-altered images on birdwatching forums putting research at risk

Who the fuck bothers to post fake images on birding websites?

The whole fucking point of birding is enjoying seeing the birds. Taking photos of birds is difficult and satisfying.

Posting fake bird photos is fucking stupid.

Outright hoaxes remain rare and are often easy to spot, said Lees – nobody is falling for a toucan sighting in Siberia – but he says birders often use AI to edit and improve an image, and the algorithm can then introduce parts from different bird species to create the new image.

My phone offers an “AI enhance” option after you take a photo. Mostly it tweaks the framing and colours, but it can also do some surprising things and produce a quite different image from the original. I played with it a bit when I first got the phone, and I saw it change people’s eye colour, turn their head to face a different way, and add extra strings to musical instruments. So I don’t use it, but it sounds like the problem is mostly people using AI image enhancers like that carelessly.

Google pixels AI enhance by default for the preloaded camera app…