Artificial animals: AI threatens photo competitions and conservation efforts

AI has come for the animals. 

When the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks unveiled its 43rd annual photo issue of Montana Outdoors on Jan. 1, the magazine carried an explanation on page 1: Magazine staff, editor Tom Dickson wrote the magazine had gone to great lengths to verify that photos submitted for the issue were, in fact, photos. 

Dickson's concern was that images produced by generative artificial intelligence — AI programs that create new material in response to a prompt — now often appear as realistic as actual photographs and could be submitted to the magazine for publication.

On today's episode, Joshua Murdock, natural resources reporter for the Missoulian newspaper, discusses his reporting on AI-generated wildlife imagery.

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Montana Untamed, hosted by Thom Bridge, covers the state's rugged landscape from hook and bullet to policy and science.