Saturday, May 03, 2025

Lilies of the uncanny valley

As the internet fills with AI-generated images, the more refined ones plagiarizing the best of actual images taken by actual humans of actual things, there's an unexpected uncanny valley when a picture you were lucky enough to take looks too good to be true. How to keep it real?

 
For now, at least, a messy composition, with some leafless branches, 
 

or sun flares and leaf shadows through other fresh green leaves might work (or in a pinch, the not-quite-hidden form of another human)...

but the shadows of these forest floor lilies of the valley are sadly just perfect enough that AI might have cribbed them somewhere; luckily tree flowers photo-bombing from above might come to the rescue.

But with these preternatural beauties you'll have to take my word for it.


And with a sci-fi aspirant like this jack-in-the-pulpit, I just give up!