Spot the AI

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I have a friend who shares AI-generated photos on her Facebook page with this challenge: how can you tell this photo is not real? Sometimes it's as obvious as a woman's third arm. Sometimes the clues are more subtle, like shadows cast in different directions. As AI becomes more popular, it is an important skill to spot phony images and be critical of trusting AI-generated content.

An animal trainer recently published a paper reviewing a training framework called the Constructional Approach. In one of her live video chats, she shared an AI-generated slide presentation summarizing her paper. I've been confused about her approach since hearing about it, and the AI clip clarified some concepts for me. It was a nice synopsis with fancy-looking graphics. I was impressed. But then I looked back at the slides with a more critical eye. Can you spot the AI graphics that made me scratch my head? 







1st image: Why is the banana thinking? What is it thinking? It appears to be a lightbulb morphed into a hook.
2nd image: Not sure what that swirling arrow means...doesn't it seems like there should be another arrow pointing toward the man to illustrate 2-way communication?
3rd image: That poor fish balancing in a tree! And isn't the tree is bent unnaturally to the right? It looks like it is being pulled back like a catapult, about to launch the fish!
4th image: What does a river have to do with an aggressive animal? What does that arrow mean?

Not all the graphics were questionable, though. I'll end with one AI graphic that I actually liked from the presentation, illustrating the main point of the trainer's paper. It is not effective to try erasing problem behaviors. Instead, we can build new behaviors:



Comments

  1. Roman ScanlonDecember 5, 2025 at 6:06 AM

    Ha! Very amusing! We're becoming surrounded by AI slop. It often (usually?) needs editing, or at least proof reading. When that doesn't happen the results can be entertaining - - or even dangerous! I always enjoy News from the Mews. Thanks for that.

    ReplyDelete

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