As if endangered animals didn't have enough on their plate, boffins have now warned that rare wildlife could be completely wiped out by dangerous artificial intelligence
18:27, 09 Dec 2024
Dog-shaped robot
A remote-controlled dog-shaped robot in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil(Image: Getty Images)
Psycho killer robots could end up wiping out endangered animals, conservationist boffins fear.
They are warning that artificial intelligence can spread “uncontrollable and damaging” scientific misinformation which ends up eradicating rare species.
This is because inaccurate AI-generated material can “undermine public understanding and support for conservation efforts”, rendering attempts to save the critters as useless.
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Robots
The conservation charity wanred of 'ticking time bomb' dangers posed by AI(Image: PR Image/Ian hull)
The eggheads reckon AI-generated images of animals can stop people from supporting genuine causes.
The Mammal Society’s boss Matt Larsen-Daw said: “The proliferation of AI as a creator and curator of online information is creating a ticking time bomb that could prove to be disastrous to conservation efforts in the future.”
The researchers are worried it could lead to authorities making inappropriate policy decisions and “vital” resources being sent to the wrong areas.
They also claim using AI to carry out wildlife monitoring can introduce false positives into data, which reports a species is present in an area when it actually isn’t it.
This can be “hugely detrimental” when it comes to monitoring rare species.
Mr Larsen-Daw said AI tools can be a “huge support” to conservationists when used “responsibly and deliberately”.
He added: “We in the conservation sector are not Luddites and are already making good use of some of the amazing capabilities of AI in data analysis and wildlife surveying tools.
“However, the potential implications of any new technology should be considered carefully before it is rolled out, so that issues can be foreseen and mitigated against.”
The society’s Alana Scott said: “The increasing use of AI-generated content across social media does worry me.
“Older generations will find it difficult to differentiate between what’s real and what’s AI.
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“I’ve seen people falling for AI-generated videos of baby giraffes riding adult giraffes on Facebook, and even AI-generated pictures of children in poverty, who are somehow magically constructing vehicles from plastic bottles, garnering thousands of likes.
“How are people supposed to differentiate between what’s real animal behaviour, or what’s a genuine cause to support, as AI models only continue to improve?”
AI-generated images of wildlife should not be created or shared without the proper context being given, the organisation said.