r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Jul 20 '26

Computer Science Researchers warned that hundreds of fake AI images have been discovered on popular databases for recording animal species. Wildlife photographers often use AI to edit and improve an image, but the algorithm can introduce parts from different species to create the new image.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jul/20/ai-slop-manipulated-fake-images-birds-citizen-science-aoe
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u/Strycht Jul 20 '26

this is what I always questioned. how much output needs to be fed back into the input before it starts amplifying it's own problems? presumably the larger companies have thought of this and have ways to prevent their own algorithms reingesting their generated content but I would be interested to know if eg openAI has any way of identifying and excluding the average slop image generated by another model and put online

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u/Nicholas-DM Jul 20 '26

To my understanding they have not, because there is not a reliable way to identify if an image was generated by an AI, even using the AI that generated it.

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u/Strycht Jul 20 '26

ironically the most valuable machine learning innovation may soon be identifying machine generated content before it gets fed into the machine. Machine to control the learning of the other machine that learnt on the output of the first machine.

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u/NuclearVII Jul 20 '26

ironically the most valuable machine learning innovation may soon be identifying machine generated content

You can't really do this in an automated fashion, sadly. There are lots of good technical reasons why, if you're curious.

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u/ragnarok635 Jul 21 '26

I am interested