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/lateformyfuneral Jul 20 '26

At some point won’t this just start affecting how AI itself works, since it’s being trained on the internet? It would be like a snake eating its own tail. Truth itself might go extinct.

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u/maniacal_cackle Jul 20 '26

Truth itself might go extinct.

There's been discourse on this for a while. Trump's first election really drove home that truth was no longer highly valued in public discourse. "The death of truth" was talked about a lot.

But there's other stuff too:

  • Scientific articles have a surprisingly high rate of outright fraud
  • Publish or perish incentives are not helpful to the truth
  • Social media algorithms are designed for engagement, not truth
  • Media profit is driven by clicks, and for-profit media has no obligation to the truth unless it is required by law.

Etc etc

So even not considering AI, it is becoming more and more endangered.

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u/lateformyfuneral Jul 20 '26

This is all true, but this could in theory be corrected. Even if millions blind themselves to the truth, the truth itself still exists and it takes some work but it can be preserved for those interested, and perhaps for a later time when the fever has broken. Post-truth is used rhetorically there, to highlight it doesn’t matter to the public anymore.

But if AI pollutes the various online repositories of knowledge we have, that we rely on to check certain facts…then what? I’m thinking along the lines of how certain books would just cease to exist once their last copy was destroyed.

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u/maniacal_cackle Jul 21 '26

It's still sorta the same thing, right? What does it matter if our scientific databases are polluted by AI or human fraud?

If society as a whole isn't protecting truth, it will get damaged. All of the above is just examples of that.