Neither of us would consider ourselves a modern equivalent of the luddites. At the same time, neither of us are advocates for the uncontrolled use of artificial intelligence. It's a tool best used for specific applications with respect and moderation.
Using artificial intelligence to generate images has made it more difficult for people to trust pictures they find online. Many of the images found in the top image search results are now generated by artificial intellgience. A portion of this website pertains to birding, the act of identifying and tracking birds. Artificially generated images of birds, nature, and other subjects are antithetical to citizen science. It's junk data which only serves to obfuscate information scientists can use to improve our understanding of the world we live in. Generated images of birds simply make it more difficult for people to identify birds and other animals.
There are appropriate ways to integrate artificial intelligence. All information produced by a computer should be reviewed for accuracy by a human. An excellent example would be the use of eBird's Merlin to assist in quickly identifying which birds might be present in a nearby soundscape. That said, the observer should only be making entries Merlin discovers after personally verifying the results and confirming the presence of specific species.
Unfortunately, there are countless examples of people misusing generative artificial intelligence or being fooled by the products of their misuse.
With exception of Cornell Lab and programs associated with eBird, we do not permit any person, organization, or entity to use our content for the purposes of training their artificial intelligence model. Please see our terms of use.
The images and media present on this website are NOT generated using artificial intelligence, generative platforms, large language models, or any other form similar softwares. All images have been captured using our Nikon D500, Nikon P950, or integrated Samsung cameras.
From what we understand, many smartphones and modern cameras, will 'enhance' the image using a mix of artificial intelligence and algorithms. It's becoming increasingly difficult to avoid these features. A small number of the images on this website are taken from our smartphones. Those that are may or may not have these 'enhancements' as part of the capture process.
We would not and will not display any photos on this website which we believe to be unrepresentative of reality.
To our knowledge, our Nikon D500 and Nikon P950 are using algorithms, not artificial intelligence, to assist with metering, autofocus, and similar features. We do not have an outward opinion against more modern cameras from using artificial intelligence to assist with tracking and autofocus but are adamantly against anything which would alter, change, or enhance an image taken with a standalone camera.
Many of the pictures have been cropped using a mix of NX Studio, Microsoft Paint, Microsoft Photos, and Microsoft Designer. We have since stopped using Microsoft Designer, even for cropping functions, due to their heavy integration with generative image tools. Some of our files have gone through post processing with NX Studio. In general, I'm OK with the .jpg files our Nikon cameras produce, but on occassion we will make small adjustments to exposure/color to help with image intelligibility. To our knowledge, our version of NX Studio does not integrate any generative AI features. Nearly all of the images present on this website have been intentionally compressed and resized using an old version of GIMP to keep file sizes down and help keep page loading times down.
Many of our full resolution images are available on the Macaulay Library. If you are wanting to see an uncompressed version of the image you can reach out to us for a copy.
The information, text, and article content present on this website was thought out, typed, and submitted by a human, likely (but not entirely) Brock Wilkinson. This means there are likely spelling errors, grammatical errors, and general stupidity present throughout.
Neither of us are professional...or even amateur programmers. We have a couple of friends who are programmers and access to information found on many coding forums. We cannot guarentee the code on this website is without the influence of artificial intelligence. That said, the vast majority of this website was solely created by the owner.
Because this website was created by someone with limited experience in web development, you'll likely find some weird things if you use the inspector tool. Most of it is simple HTML. There is some JavaScript present for buttons and the photo galleries.
Although we likely could have ended up with a snazzier website in only a fraction of the time using generative artificial intelligence, we hope our humble creation suits its purpose of delivering our personal blog to you.