Date: 8/5/26 9:11 am From: Justyn Stahl via groups.io <justyn.stahl...> Subject: Re: [SanDiegoRegionBirding] [CALBIRDS] artificial intelligence and photos of birds
On Sun, Jul 26, 2026 at 10:23 AM Ethan Monk via groups.io <z.querula=
<gmail.com...> wrote:
> Dear Birders,
>
> Over the past year, several birders in California and further abroad have
> used artificial intelligence (“AI”) to edit photographs of birds and have
> uploaded those altered photos to eBird and iNaturalist. Even though most of
> these instances have probably been innocuous attempts to make a poor photo
> look a bit better, this practice is highly damaging regardless of a user's
> intended purpose. Unfortunately, most birders still do not understand how
> many of these programs work and why they are so negative. Below I have
> attempted to explain this issue.
>
> There are several types of artificial intelligence, but the variety used
> by the most popular platforms (Google Gemini, Claude, etc.) is called
> generative AI. These programs have immense databases which they use to
> generate responses to user prompts. To put it simply, if you have a photo
> of a California Scrub-Jay, and you use a generative artificial intelligence
> program to edit the photo, the program is going outside of the data
> contained in the photo, searching its database for what it knows California
> Scrub-Jays look like, and then uses that external knowledge to “touch up”
> the photo to meet its expectations. This is not much different than
> printing a photo out onto paper and asking an artist to touch up the photo
> by painting onto it. The human artist will use their knowledge of what
> scrub-jays are supposed to look like to improve the image. So does AI.
>
> To further clarify, I asked Google Gemini to explain how it edits photos.
> Here is what it told me: “Gemini is a Generator: It doesn’t actually “edit”
> your photo. Instead, it looks at your image, reads your instructions, and
> draws a brand-new picture from scratch based on patterns it knows. Because
> it rebuilds the entire image every time, it struggles to keep the original
> details—like the exact shape of a face, text, or background
> textures—identical.”
>
> So, if you upload that Scrub-Jay, the generative AI can use its knowledge
> of scrub-jays to fill in missing details, and make that blurry photo sharp,
> or that dark spot visible, etc. But what if you upload a subpar photo of an
> Empidonax flycatcher? Or a seagull (yeah, I said it)? The AI still goes
> into its database and uses that external knowledge to touch up the photo…
> can the blurry Western Flycatcher be mistakenly touched up into a Willow? A
> Yellow-footed Gull into a Western Gull? Even if you upload a good photo,
> can the Sooty Fox Sparrow be made to look a bit more like a Slate-colored?
> Might a hatch-year state of molt return looking a bit more adult like? (If
> the number of remiges can change on a bird when run through AI, as I've
> seen a few times, it seems anything is possible.) How about a perfectly
> decent photo of an Epaulet Oriole, which when “touched up” with AI came out
> looking like the first-for-Brazil record of Red-winged Blackbird? More on
> that last scenario, and a further explanation of AI’s problems as they
> pertain to citizen science databases, here:
> https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03141-y >
> In short, generative AI should absolutely not be used when editing
> photos. These programs rely on pre-existing knowledge to edit photos, and
> in doing so, inevitably hallucinate details that were not actually there.
> At best, uploading these photos pollutes scientific databases with photos
> not representative of reality. (It is crazy that that is the "at best."])
> And, I hate to say it, but with companies shoving AI down our collective
> throats, the onus is now on the user to verify that new photo editing apps
> and tools do not use generative artificial intelligence.
>
> One final sobering note: Most of these instances where eBird reviewers or
> other careful eyed observers have sniffed out AI-altered media have done so
> because, to the trained eye, most AI edited photos often have the wrong
> number of feathers, a mishmash of features from different (sub)species, or
> otherwise appear "strange" or "off." But AI is improving rapidly. Just last
> year, I was unable to generate a photo of a bird in Google Gemini that did
> not seemingly combine features of multiple species and that was not
> positioned at an unnatural angle. Last week, I generated a photo of a
> Mourning Warbler with AI--completely from scratch, no pre-existing photo to
> serve as a "canvas" to work off of--that was scarily convincing. (I sent
> the photo to a few friends to ask what they thought-- the first to reply
> wrote, “Ok f*** this.”) Soon, we will not be able to tell what is and is
> not altered.
>
> Please, build good habits now, and encourage the same from those around
> you by strongly advocating against the use of generative artificial
> intelligence to edit photos and by educating other birders of its perils.
>
> Thank you
> Ethan Monk
>
>
>
>
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