Nature NSW Autumn 2025

Gary Dunnett, Chief Executive Officer

Worth protecting

I can’t be alone in being shocked at how quickly AI has pervaded our lives.  Ever more sophisticated scams, robots writing real estate listings, cheating in exams and Popes in puffer jackets.  At the same time as AI spreads, the simulations improve and our ability to detect its presence becomes more difficult. 

A growing arena for AI is AI-generated images of wildlife and natural landscapes flooding social media.  The Facebook ‘Reels’, short video clips that Meta pushes into my feed, are dominated by pets and wildlife.  After years of ignoring cats swatting dogs, and divers feeding Tiger Sharks, I recently took a quick scroll through the selection.  Virtually all the ‘wildlife’ clips I watched were clearly, and without acknowledgement, generated by AI.  Polar Bears clinging to the side of cargo ships, huge (and slightly misshapen) Orcas capsizing trawlers, owls arranged in Babushka order and bald eagles taking impossible prey. 

All the crazy action scenes were easy enough to spot.  More insidious were the implausibly immaculate and colourful birds.  One especially striking video featured pairs of exquisitely plumaged birds sheltering their chicks beneath umbrella-like wings. 

So, what’s the problem?  Making representations of wildlife, often anthropomorphised and romanticised, is hardly a new human trait. 

What concerns me is that these beguiling images foreshadow a fast-approaching time when the boundaries of invention and reality become indistinguishable, especially to anyone who doesn’t already possess a confident knowledge of the species that occupy our planet and their behaviour.  The reality of that risk came crashing home when a former colleague, a highly respected conservation professional, posted an AI generated video of avian parental care in the clear belief that it was genuine. 

To date each generation has had plenty of opportunities to learn that Disneyfied versions of nature are no reflection of reality.  They only needed to go outdoors to see that the real world is less hygienic, far more complex and wonderfully chaotic.  Not all developed a strong connection to the natural world, but for most the chance was there. 

My fear is that the perfect wildlife and nature created by AI sits in increasingly stark contrast to grubby and delightful reality.  A fairytale world where nature faces no threat and has no need of advocacy and action.  Indeed, compared to such pristine perfection, does a mite ridden Greater Glider really warrant our concern?

All of which represents a bit of a problem for an organisation committed to ‘protecting nature through community action’.  Our conservation advocacy is important, yet in this sanitised world I genuinely believe that the most important thing NPA does is to help people connect with nature.  Each time we visit a park, or see a real animal, our certainty that this reality is worth protecting is restored.

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