You say that you will "not continue with this experimental feature if it is found to reduce user enjoyment".

Who will be the judge of this? The iNat devs? Surely not the users - you brushed off our main concerns now and just went ahead. What's the assurance you'll suddenly take us seriously later?

Thank you for the response, although this does sound disappointingly like "we see you, we hear you, we understand you have lots of questions and concerns, so please bear with us while we explain in sanitised language how we're gonna just do this anyway, userbase be damned".

I hope I'm wrong.

In the interests of fairness I've taken a more measured stance in response to the increase in transparency, but to be honest, I at least personally still really dislike this and would rather this decision be reversed. It has certainly made me feel less inclined to recommend iNat.

@inaturalist.bsky.social I sincerely hope that the potential ethics of using genAI are considered going forward, especially with care being taken to take seriously the opinions of the iNat userbase. I'd hate to see iNat fall to the same types of profit seeking enshittification we so often see.

Thanks for the transparency. This does seem to at least be a slightly more sensible use of GenAI than I'd been led to believe initially. I do still have some concerns though, especially regarding the often deeply serious ethical issues around the training, use of, and consequences of the genAI.

Hi @inaturalist.bsky.social, I've been an enthusiastic supporter of your site for years, I'm about to hit 10 000 observations, and have donated on many occasions. If iNat becomes involved in training generative AI, I see no choice but to nuke my entire account. Utterly heartbroken by this decision.

I'll never use AI. I would never pollute and degrade any work of mine with such wasted potential.

Even if generative AI becomes completely undetectable and indistinguishable from real work, I would without a doubt still consider it worthless compared to a real artwork created with human vision and skill. I want to see art that has a story of human spirit and dedication behind it.

Thanks so much for sharing my work! I'm so flattered and grateful to see it appreciated

Hey, that's real kind of you, glad you like my work! Thank you so much!

Do it! I reckon it's always best to prioritise your original creative vision for the piece, rather than adjusting it to respond in advance to perceived future judgements. You may not even get those judgements in the first place.

Oops, looks like Bluesky doesn't support video format. That's ok, I guess I'll just link my animations on YT