Weird pine barrens images from new Photoshop AI feature

[Boyd]

Will admit, have never tried using any of the generative AI tools that have recently become available. But I noticed they can now be accessed directly in Photoshop. So, just for fun..

"A nineteenth century topographic map of a secret location in the New Jersey Pine Barrens" (three variations)

I wondered just how much info they might have scraped from NJPB, so I tried this one just for fun...

"bobpbx and Teegate from https://forums.njpinebarrens.com on a hike in the pine barrens" (3 variations). These get very weird, especially the headless midget in the last one. But at least I was happy to see that it didn't blatantly rip off anyones photos (did it?)

OK, this is all a little too weird for me. But I can see where there might be some more conservative, practical uses for the technology.

 

[martink]

The Ai bots ripped off a lot of the text to my semi-niche publication. A couple of times bloggers have asked ChatGPT questions and said it sounded liked warmed-over articles we would publish and I’m like “well, yeah.” Glad that NJPinebarrens seems to be off the map! I’ll be looking for headless midgets next time I go hiking.

 

[Boyd]

But I can see where there might be some more conservative, practical uses for the technology.

Definitely NOT one of those uses

"The Jersey Devil, a black bear, a dire wolf and Bigfoot sitting at a rustic table playing poker under a full moon in the New Jersey Pine Barrens"

LOTS of weird things about these creatures if you look closely. Doesn't seem to know what Bigfoot looks like. And a very odd moon.

 

[Boyd]

Glad that NJPinebarrens seems to be off the map!

Seems to me, if you can find a picture with a Google search, then it's probably been used to train an AI. Wouldn't be at all surprised if some elements of pictures from this site went into the mix here, but not used in ways we could directly point to as somebody's picture. But I was glad that it didn't actually use screenshots of my maps, photos of real people or locations that we could recognize, so that's something (I guess).

 

[Boyd]

How about this picture of Brooksbrae?

Only problem is, more than half of it is fake. I took the picture below back in 2004. I put it in the bottom right corner of an empty frame and photoshop generated the rest with a mouse click. This really bothers me; sooner than anybody expected, we won't be able to believe anything unless we see it in person.

 

[Boyd]

How about the cranberry station.. as it never existed?

Generated from my old photo

 

[bobpbx]

Definitely NOT one of those uses

"The Jersey Devil, a black bear, a dire wolf and Bigfoot sitting at a rustic table playing poker under a full moon in the New Jersey Pine Barrens"

View attachment 23151

View attachment 23152

LOTS of weird things about these creatures if you look closely. Doesn't seem to know what Bigfoot looks like. And a very odd moon.

That wolf sitting down in the center-left also has his hind feet on the table. He's very flexible.

 

[Boyd]

Here's a real Friendship panorama that I took in 2016

I chopped off everything but this section in the middle

And with one click (literally), photoshop generated a new panorama. There are probably some obvious clues in a higher resolution version, but I would believe that this is a real photo.

 

[bobpbx]

Here's a real Friendship panorama that I took in 2016

View attachment 23159

I chopped off everything but this section in the middle

View attachment 23160

And with one click (literally), photoshop generated a new panorama. There are probably some obvious clues in a higher resolution version, but I would believe that this is a real photo.

View attachment 23161

As to the view on the right, it looks like they laid the trees out similar to what might be seen in a western area (the leaning look to them).

 

[Boyd]

Looks a little like an overgrown orchard to me. As impressed as I am with the technology, this is pretty depressing. I'd think that was a real photo because (normally) there would be no reason to doubt it. Seems like those days are ending and now we need to be suspicious of everything we see and read.

This stuff is also a spammer's dream come true. Not only can they generate fake text, they can also have a portfolio of fake photos. Not a big problem on a little site like NJPB, but over at MacRumors we are seeing a lot of ai-enabled spam. Just this morning I saw a post that was quite convincing. But there were a few clues it was fake, especially in the context of the thread where it was posted. Ran it through 5 different ai-checkers: two said it was human-written, the other three said it was ai. After discussing with another mod, we deleted it and banned the user.

 

[bobpbx]

Looks a little like an overgrown orchard to me. As impressed as I am with the technology, this is pretty depressing. I'd think that was a real photo because (normally) there would be no reason to doubt it. Seems like those days are ending and now we need to be suspicious of everything we see and read.

This stuff is also a spammer's dream come true. Not only can they generate fake text, they can also have a portfolio of fake photos. Not a big problem on a little site like NJPB, but over at MacRumors we are seeing a lot of ai-enabled spam. Just this morning I saw a post that was quite convincing. But there were a few clues it was fake, especially in the context of the thread where it was posted. Ran it through 5 different ai-checkers: two said it was human-written, the other three said it was ai. After discussing with another mod, we deleted it and banned the user.

What really annoys me is what these dotards are doing to science in social media. They have a very interesting geology, or space, or landscape photo and try to pass it off as a real photo. This is not good.

 

[Boyd]

As to the view on the right, it looks like they laid the trees out similar to what might be seen in a western area (the leaning look to them).

So, that was just the default image that it created with no specific instructions from me. Here are three variations from the following prompt:

"old bog in the new jersey pine barrens with a creek in the foreground winding off into the distance on the left"

Or maybe this?

"old bog with Mount Shasta off in the distance"

But the amount of energy used to create this kind of magic is very concerning, since all the major tech companies seem determined to shove AI down our throats, whether we want it or not.

"...They also found that generating two images with AI could use as much energy as the average smartphone charge."

If true, then generating the images in this thread has consumed as much energy as charging my phone for 10 days. Wow....

What Do Google’s AI Answers Cost the Environment?

Google is bringing AI answers to a billion people this year, but generative AI requires much more energy than traditional keyword searches

www.scientificamerican.com