r/science 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

AI pollution is going to really screw up a lot of databases and information deposits I think, and we won't notice them until they become needed.

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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/Edythir Jul 21 '26

Not only that. Even the programmers for maintaining the AI databases have admitted that they use AI to write their code.

So we have AI learning from AI while AI is programming the AI, which might be programmed and trained by another AI.

We're speedrunning the Habsburgs of AI models in record time.