Comment by sbarre

>> I feel like we're having 2 different conversations here.

> Yes. You're very focused on real/not-real, but that's not at all the issue.

I'm actually more focused on the purpose of an image than it's provenance or accuracy.

Hence the "visualization" part. I felt like you were specifically upset about the fact that this visualization was made with AI, and I was wondering if you would have felt similarly upset if this had been visualized with a 3D render or a human-drawn illustration.

> An artist's depiction for scale (versus a real photo) is fine if it's intentionally drawn to scale.

So you trust a human artist's ability to draw to-scale more than AI? The human could be doing their best to draw to-scale and still get it very wrong. I don't know how you could measure, in aggregate, AI vs. human when it comes to ability to draw to-scale.

> The point is "can I trust the reference depiction gives me accurate information?"

Again how would a human who just draws or renders a thing next to a human be more trustworthy than AI when it comes to getting the scale correct?

> I have an aversion to undisclosed bullshit invented out of whole cloth being dropped into a discussion of a real academic subject.

Fair point in this context. I guess this perhaps answers my first question about whether this was AI-specific (which it really felt like based on your initial language) or just about the fact that the image - regardless of how it was made - was not scientifically accurate enough.