Artificial Intelligence

Some of you may have noticed the photo in last week’s post had a note in the bottom corner that the image was generated by AI. I tried to get a coyote photo for over a year.

The best I could get was this grainy shot of a coyote running away from us. It wasn’t really what I was after.

Then Photoshop came out with AI software that generates photos. I though I would try it. The way it works, you have a base photo then add things to it. I looked for a photo of a location that both bears and coyotes would live, but it needed a road. Looking back through my photos, I found this photo from the San Juan Mountains.

I opened it in Photoshop and selected the area where I wanted a coyote to be inserted. Then clicked on the generative fill option and typed “coyote running”.

Then I tried again. This time adding the truck.

If you thank that was all there was to it, you would be very wrong. It might be called “Artificial Intelligence” but it’s mostly artificial. Each step took many tries to find something that was reasonable. For your amusement here are some of the rejects.

“ ‘The Three Little Pigs’ big bad wolf” version of a Coyote

“Bloody” version of a Coyote

This coyote made it across the road, but is that blood? Maybe the AI thinks he got hit by a car. I have no idea what that blob is supposed to be.

“German Shepard” version of a Coyote

That’s a German Shepard with no feet. It takes some trial and lots of errors. The truck was worse. You would think a “white pickup truck” would be easy.

That’s not a pickup.

I tried again.

Still no pickups. I decided that it didn’t know what a pickup was. I tried other variations: white farm truck, white utility truck, White Ford truck. Clearly this AI was not taught by an American. Some suggestions weren’t even white.

Below are the results for “White Chevrolet Truck.” Yes, those really are the results.

I had to look up “chevrolet.” It means the place where goats are raised. That still didn’t explain those three photos. Clearly AI has some learning to do before it conquers the world.

So here is your final AI generated photo of a coyote about to be hit by a white pickup.

I think I will stick to taking my own photos.

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