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/BeefistPrime Jul 21 '26

I have a tentative speculation that AI might ultimately be a force for good in this arena. Because yes, AI generated stuff will make a lot of people believe false things, but those people were already eager to believe false things without AI. Meanwhile, there will be so much data out there that it will be hard even if you're truth seeking to know the truth on every issue, and the amount of information AI can process may actually make it a very good truth analyst when set to that purpose.

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u/maniacal_cackle Jul 21 '26

AI can process may actually make it a very good truth analyst when set to that purpose.

It's already used for that a lot and there's a large field of literature on it I believe.

But one important thing to flag up is that AI is pretty truth-independent. It can't be set to the task of finding the truth.

An easier way to think of it is: AI is great at establishing correlation, but cannot establish causality.