Meta has a suggestion for those like me who forgot to go out and see the Northern Lights on Thursday night. Just use AI to disguise it. However, thread users who responded to Meta’s idea posted last night with three AI-generated images of Aurora Meta seem to disagree.
The image shows the Northern Lights hovering over the Golden Gate Bridge, the city skyline, and the Ferris wheel. It’s apparently meant to capture the trending moment of people posting their own photos of the aurora borealis, from an astonishing and unusual display of the aurora borealis that plunged deep into the United States on Thursday night.
Once you get past the first few comments from people sharing their unique AI-generated photos of the aurora borealis, the replies range from thoughtful to critical.
One person who described himself as an “astronaut, particle physicist, and AI scientist” provided particularly detailed feedback.
Others shared photos they said captured the phenomenon.
Similar to Google’s Olympic ads, Meta’s social media team is in the dark. User submissions are more than just showing off pretty photos (though that’s part of it, of course). They also aim to participate in collective celebrations of shared rare lived experiences. There is no time or place to insert AI-generated images.
Society is still sorting out thorny questions about AI, such as what AI is doing to photos and the ethics of letting it learn the work of artists, writers, musicians, and photographers collected on the internet. Until the dust settles on these discussions, meta-like posts will continue to be irrelevant.
