InFlux

The Taoyuan Walker

A small cloisonné-enamel vase

Meiji era (late 19th century)

Bonhams

Worked in silver and gold wire and polychrome enamels with trailing wisteria around the shoulder, the neck with dense foliate scroll and the foot with a stiff-leaf band, all on a midnight blue ground, gilt-copper mounts

And here we are, cheerfully playing along, sounding reasonably competent — but everyone, when they have the attention to spare, is keeping an eye on the tuba players. They don’t come in for the first eight measures or so, and then when they do come in, what we see is:

[stifled giggling]

[reeeeeeally deep breath]

[COLOSSAL FOGHORN NOISE]

The entire band stops dead, in the cacophonous kind of way that a band stops when it hasn’t actually been cued to stop. The band director doesn’t even say anything, just looks straight back at the tubas and makes a helpless sort of why gesture.

In unison, the tuba players defend themselves: “THERE WERE FOUR F’S.”

which is 8 fortes. We were shocked until,

up until that point, during the day lily continued to dress in masculine clothing and even attended galleries showing gottlieb’s paintings of her. which was kind of iconic. she got to stand in a room full of people who were marveling her beauty, not knowing she was right next to them. it must have been such a cute little secret for them as a couple.

here’s gerda and lilly together

not to mention that for most people there is no real “after” to a transition. especially for these trans historical figures who had to balance identity and safety at all times.

i think having a wife paint these portraits must have felt really amazing for lily. to be able to see herself through the eyes of someone who loved her. i’m very much seconding op on the getting teary eyed.

here are some of my favorite gottleib lily paintings

Honey, I think you're kind of missing the point. – No, I'm not. You're going to adopt Meredith. That is so sweet, Dad.

Except... what's going on with those labial scales? Something about them looks off. And that row of spikes down the back, Komodos don't have that. And their nostrils aren't so round. Hm. I think I know what's happening here.

I did not realize that this was AI at first glance; I thought it was just a really heavy editing style. I saw the missing central toe, yeah, but Komodos will do that to each other sometimes. The other forefoot, the one with four toes, is positioned in such a way that the fifth toe could be hidden, and the lifted hind foot could be similar.

But if you know Komodo dragon anatomy like I do, the inaccuracies pop up pretty quickly. Still, it's not like it was during the early days of GenAI; what I'm seeing here is that the GenAI image algos are getting better at discerning what part of a picture is a Komodo dragon. Since the inception, GenAI has really struggled to make accurate reptiles. In the beginning, everything was an iguana... even the Komodo dragons.

Over time, the models have been refined, but there are still some pretty obvious anatomy differences- the slit pupils, the mouth shape, the overall definition of the snout...

And they often struggle with the tongue. This isn't what the inside of a lizard's mouth looks like!

There's a lot of talk about how GenAI is bad for the brain- but it seems like most of it is actually about writing. And I think we should be talking more about images, too. Not even just about the stolen training data or the erosion of opportunities for artists, but... what is such easy access to these generated images doing to our ability to perceive what's real versus what isn't?

Every single one of the images I pulled is from a highly popular stock photo site. In case you don't know what a stock photo is, it's a photograph (you can also have stock illustrations and stock footage) that's been licensed to use in different applications. These pictures aren't taken for a specific client; anybody who pays can use them within the terms of the image's license.

But all of these images- they're not photos. They're inaccurate illustrations. I recognize them for what they are because I spend a lot of time looking at lizards, but what if you've got someone writing a quick news story, or designing a science worksheet, or throwing together a museum brochure or a zoo sign? If they don’t know what a Komodo dragon is supposed to look like, they’ll use whatever looks convincing.

Images trigger something deep within us- you know that saying "A picture is worth a thousand words?" We're wired to trust what we see. But the problem here is that genAI doesn't create an image of the thing; it creates what its internal logic says is associated with the subject of the prompt. It all comes down to probability; generative AI makes images by looking at its training data and creating output based on what the data is associated with.

(For more info on how AI "sees" what it does, check out the LENS project, which you can read more about here.)

We don't see things the same way the computers do, and we're willing to trust images more than words. How many stock photos do you think you see each day? It's probably more than you think; after all, the average American sees around 5,000 ads per day. And while those photos are marked as AI generated on the stock sites, they aren't marked as AI generated once someone has licensed them. And if the stock site doesn't have what you need? No problem, just use the AI image generator to fake that photo yourself!

We already have seen political deepfakes and AI generated images used to spread misinformation. Did you see the image of an ICE agent arresting a Doordash worker? That was an AI fake, part of a larger hoax. Some of us are already learning to respond with increased skepticism to important images, because people have an agenda to fake those. But what about the less important images, the background images, the completely mundane images? GenAI seems to be quietly coming for them, and it's something we should be paying attention to, because if we're exposed, constantly and quietly, to generated images and are trained to believe it's photography, we'll be more accepting of the bigger lies when we see them.

I chose not to license my photos for sale and made everything on the site free for non-AI artistic use: paywalls ruin the internet, and there has to be something accurate out there available for folks to access.

And if you’d like to see some real Komodo dragons, well, the site has a bunch.

If you live north of the Equator, June 21 marks the summer solstice for you. This date is when the Northern Hemisphere reaches its maximum tilt toward the Sun and has its longest stretch of daylight all year.

In the Southern Hemisphere, the opposite is true today! Today is the start of winter and the shortest day for friends south of the Equator.

it's made of a first world war shell casing

anyway I am never one to back down from a challenge so I was like "yeah fuck it I'll give it a shot, let me see what I can find in the charity shops and if I can't find a copper kettle or something then I'll use a nice biscuit tin I have lying around"

all of which to say

guess what I found in the charity shop today

go on

guess

Proboscis Bat Rhynchonycteris naso

It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad. The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.

In the photo, the two bats on the lower left are carrying young.