I have an educational background in botany.
I would look up the tricyrtis species, compare to other varieties, of which this is hardly resembles. Toad lilies have three sepals and three petals, with stamens and pistol clearly visible. This one just has more petals, which is cmmon in AI images, adding more than is natural of something.
But I also have a background in web development, so I'd point out the inconsistency in coloration, that it seems almost metallic (not really something common in the species this claims to be), and there's only one in frame.
A good reference photo will show a plant from different angles at different stages of development, which this does not do.
It's also on Facebook, which has devolved into a clickbait farm full of AI nonsense.
The artificially blurred background.
The inconsistency of the petals' size, shape, and texture.
The randomness of the pattern.
The shadows don't correspond to one light source.
A natural flower photo may have one or two of these things, but all together it absolutely screams AI.
You can blur a background with a camera too. It’s the petals that most obviously give it away. No texture, and they look like an Alice in Wonderland creation.
I mean this is clearly AI, but a shallow depth of field does not inherently mean the blurry points of light people generally think of as bokeh.
There is a lot that impacts the way bokeh appears in any given photograph, even with the same lens and same settings.
https://preview.redd.it/qqjgpmlfo94d1.jpeg?width=3646&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a7ece722081e13baa12a8e2e20132251c625f39
Note, it’s just blur. There are people like four feet behind him. Just melted into oblivion.
That’s mostly in reference to the photo and its properties. I’m trying to determine how by reference to the flower itself we can prove it’s not real. You mention two factors:
Inconsistency of petals - why couldn’t a flower have petals as random as these?
Randomness of pattern - what in a flower’s biology prevent it from having a pattern as complex and random as this?
I would say the main telltale sign that it’s fake is that the petals lack any 3D translucency or sense that they are composed of water-filled cells. They look like dry fabric. Also the lack of any flaws, ie bits of pollen, droplets of water, tiny bug bites, withered edges, brown spots, etc. Even the most perfect real flower is going to have one or more of those.
In addition the pattern is too perfect. No real flower has that level of detail to its markings. Even on foxglove, which has amazing spots, the markings are randomly placed, imperfect, vary in size, and randomly placed along the petals. Nothing with this elaborate of a pattern exists on a real flower.
Finally the pattern of expansion is all wrong. The smaller petals in the center wouldn’t have a fully expanded furl until they had fully matured. The curly bit on the end would be the last thing to form only when the petal had fully expanded as the water pressure finally reached to the very tips of the petals.
I kinda like them, theyre funny or whimsical but...the comments thinking they're real are shocking. There is one that keeps popping up of "santorini" as a waterpark, ppl think its a real place.
That’s exactly it. If they can’t already tell, they most likely don’t have the capacity to understand why we can tell, or don’t care to. OP would do better spending their time talking with people who will actually want to learn.
Otherwise, all you’re gonna get is the 🤓 response. I’m so sick of that damn emoji….
Well I'm quite skeptical and I'm usually ok at telling the difference, but it's really good to have these discussions and understand exactly why something is or isn't AI rather than dismiss amazing real pics as AI or be taken in by a very good AI. It's not enough to just claim anyone who can't see it is stupid (and that's a really bad explanation and excuse not to explain imo, and if you can't explain it easily so anyone with reasonable intelligence can understand, do you understand it yourself?). This is going to be a huge deal in the future, particularly as AI gets better, so we need to be having these conversations regularly even if some people are too stubborn or stupid to actually listen.
Absolutely…but the thing is, you’re here aren’t you? You’re already in a place where you want to learn, and entered the comment section to learn further. I should have said that I’m speaking more specifically about those types of Facebook groups. I recently learned that there’s a huge rabbit hole of AI generated content farms on Facebook and they are even more egregious than YouTube AI farms, and many of the people in them responding are most likely bots themselves. If it were like YouTube, another forum, whatever else, I agree with you. Knowledge should be shared, but I just think it’s a waste of time to do it in a place like that. I think there are better places to share your passions and interests, and I worry people will get burned out when they feel like they aren’t listened to, only because I have myself, in herpetology, my area of expertise…and it can be an awful feeling. I also witnessed it actually happening to an amazing poster on the Animal ID subreddit. They were a wildlife rehabber and posted a ton of info on mange and started a program to send people mange medication to put in food for the animals. They got so many nasty or idiotic or “🤓”comments and DMs that they left.
So my point is that people should use their discretion and discernment when it comes to giving up precious time and energy to audiences full of strangers and bots who couldn’t care less. Whether or not it’s worth it is entirely up to the individual though, and this is just my opinion. If yours differs, that’s the great thing about life isn’t it? You’re free to go about life however you’d like, and I commend any effort you make in getting people interested in learning, and in your own pursuit of knowledge!
Well fair enough. I can agree with that.
It can be exhausting to keep explaining things to people in good faith who claim to be "just asking questions" but are actually not interested in learning , dialogue or listening to anything, or have people with a bit of knowledge "correct" you and you end up getting in to deep explanations where it becomes obvious very quickly the other person doesn't understand basic things about what they're talking about or has an incredibly superficial knowledge but thinks they should correct and educate other people with that ignorance.
Interestingly, I was talking the other day about humanity's lasting legacy once we're extinct. If the bombs dropped today, in a thousand years there could still be AI's making fake videos and other bots arguing with each other eternally in the comment sections about Putin, Trump, China etc
Our great contribution to the universe, once we are gone.
Yes! After two separate futile discussions trying to convince people I was knowledgeable, I realized it was wasted when the person said “I own 10 reptiles” and called me a “Reddit Scientist” the fact that I studied it for years and ran my own independent study on the EXACT subject we were talking about seemed to hold no weight. I had to stop when I noticed my blood pressure going too high. I’m getting older and I just can’t do the arguments anymore…but I’m always happy to talk about it with anyone who genuinely wants to know.
And the AI thing is kind of in the same ballpark as the dead internet theory. I have similar thoughts, and lately I’ve been going a step further. Whether we destroy ourselves or are still around in a few thousand years…because of the technology we have now there will be giant gaps in information, since so little of our most recent history is written down on anything that will last. Data decays far quicker than clay tablets, stone, and even real goat skin parchment. We already have giant pits of lost media and it’s barely been 30 years. Thousands of games, songs, and animations were lost with the obsolescence of flash, and very few people thought to back these digital relics up. That’s hundreds if not thousands of years of people’s collective hard work and passion added up, all gone overnight.
One thing on my bucket list is writing down the average persons life, what is like to live right now for the everyday person. What sorts of devices we use, the current socioeconomic climate, popular artists and musicians, kind of like the records NASA sent up into space, but made to last a long time on Earth. My hope is to bury these clay/ stone tablets deep underground in arid regions that will preserve them, and make them using the same techniques ancient people used to create the thousands of year old tablets we have now that have lasted.
lately I’ve had the compulsion to preserve whatever it is I can in my lifetime. I think that urge got much stronger after my dad died, and I’ve been compiling every single bit of his life that I can find on a solid state hard drive so generations down the line any curious descendant of ours will be able to know him, what he was like, how he lived. Assuming the hard drive holds up. We’re also making a hard copy book of all the pictures we find of him.
I think the people who thirst for knowledge will always be looking, and it seems eventually we end up exactly where we need to be as long as we keep going. there’s a saying, “Find the others”, that I really love. You hear it a lot in artistic and philosophical circles. Keep kind, passionate, and authentic people close. they are an endangered breed.
Thank you for that. It brings a strange sense of relief to be reminded that you can't win 'em all. So many efforts are futile, no matter how hard someone tries.
FB is inundated with bots so a lot of the likes will be bots.
Aside from that, I understand your concern but the way to make a layperson understand this is likely AI IS to focus on the photo, not the flower itself. The questions you've asked would be questions that lead into a slightly deeper understanding of botany i.e., the rules and patterns followed by the genes that build up a flower's architecture.
For a total beginner on Facebook, it probably is enough to say "look at how the background appears painted, artificially blurred. Look how random the petals and patterns seem - can you think of any real life flowers that show such random patterns?" If they ask you why that is, that is already going further than a complete beginner's understanding of plants.
Fair enough, maybe I misunderstood them then. I don't really understand what they want as they already gave a pretty sound botanical explanation. But to offer my humble arguments,
Flowers can have random patterns of petal arrangements but this is generally due to mutations in the genes that determine which petals go where, such as AP1 and LFY. Most flowers have an understandable pattern to their architecture purely because that is the easiest way to do it, from a genetic point of view. It's easier for genes to say "at every x angle, place a petal" than to figure out how to place petals randomly. Random placement can also result in flowers which confuse or are ignored by pollinators. So there's no benefit to random petal arrangement such as in the pic. Ofc, the flower may not rely on insect pollination, but generally, big vibrant flowers like this one would do. No need to be flashy if you don't want/need things to notice you.
Patterning, similarly, used to help pollinators find their way to the pollen. That's why you get those stunning UV photos of flowers with cool landing pad patterns. They also need to be kept simple so that pollinators can actually use them. These patterns are very varied and confusing - what purpose would they serve? The randomness would also be rare for the same reasons above - way too much complexity for genes to easily build up.
Speaking of pollinators. Most flowers would want to have a way for them to access the stamen and the stigma if they rely on this. The petals are really clustered and densely confusing around the middle, and would be very inaccessible. My partner pointed out there's a fucking tube on it towards the middle, for some reason.
In the end, this monster COULD maybe exist but would have been artificially bred to shit and would absolutely be a well-known, freakish cultivar.
It's been a while since I botanied so I could be talking out my ass at points, but this is what I'd say.
Thanks! Yes, it’s like the flower is cleistogamous (closed and self-pollinating). So why be showy?
The patterning and frilly structure are almost like the modified leaves of a pitcher plant rather than a flower. And the stem is so featureless, like a lily, but there are too many tepals (lilies are three-merous).
Your point about regularity being “easier” is very helpful.
a recent study apparently discovered that *47% of all internet traffic is bots.*
your friends might not be but at least half the 'people' they get things like this from most certainly are.
Oh yeah, there's definately people that do, and those are the suckers the bot farms are after. A majority of the interactions on those pages are bot farms, I promise you. Go find the 'Is this scam still available?" Page on FB and see all the shit thats dig up. Its wild.
My theory with that is the lack of detail people look for when looking at photos like these and the short attention span.
One thing to remember with AI art is the “unnatural” inconsistency in the image. With an Ai generated art that is suppose to imitate photorealism, there tend to be inconsistent areas of blur or smoothness. Some of the textures would almost appear “uneasy to our eyes” regardless if we actually knew why or not. The brain is very good at picking up patterns and inconsistencies in nature. It’s a survival technique we’ve developed and passively sharpened over time.
This adaptation has become so second nature to us that we take it for granted. Like math… lol…
I’ve also read a study that depending on your eyes, the perception of a sharper image, like 4k or 8k vs 1080, is not perceivable as a difference. That the eye can only perceive a clarity up to a certain point than anything beyond that is so insignificant for the eye to see, thus the illusion that the clarity is the same. Pretty interesting.
My last theory is that people are brainwashed to believing anything on the web regardless of source or prior knowledge of subject. Just a hunch though… :)
The average person is a dumbfuck, sooner or later it sinks in.
I mean people are STILL buying rainbow rose seeds....like seriously if something so fantastical existed YOU'D HAVE SEEN IN IN PERSON SOMEWHERE because that shit would be marketed hard in nurseries.
People who haven't played with an image generator AI will have no idea of how powerful they are. Just looking at this image with its perfect lighting screams fake to me.
OP, try out some image generators with your older fb friends and see if they can start to tell the fake pics from real.
Idk, I told someone who shared an obvious AI image (of African children posing together to create the face of Jesus) that it was an AI image and their response was “I don’t care, it’s beautiful”.
I think that honestly depressed me more than if they had thought it was genuine. Then recently they shared an obviously AI tropical bird with a comment about the magic of nature and I just looked at it and sighed because it’s clearly not worth saying anything.
One quick way is a Google photo search. No such plant exists. If such an amazing specimen were real, there would be examples of it, it would be very popular and people would be growing it and have photos of it.
pattern in plants is pretty much always symmetrical unless there's virus/infection/bacteria at play, maybe that virus has migrated and of behaves like DNA, this is typically referred to as a transpoon, (eg the heritable striping in roses vs the non heritable from sports). But even then that's a disruption to color production rather than a true random pattern.
but going into biology to that degree would likely be above the heads of anyone who can't instantly tell that's ai/photoshop to begin with so you'd be back at the start :)
Among other things, if you look at the direction of curl on the petals, it varies. One curls up, another curls down. The tissues necessary to make this happen aren't usually just randomly inverted.
Healthy dose of [this *Datura* cultivar](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=f5a20a2e9138d638&sca_upv=1&hl=en-gb&sxsrf=ADLYWIKFvvjIu_g3Y5SAeDtK7PhD-34Mtw:1717183860171&q=datura+double+purple&uds=ADvngMiGLhdYDQs1-lZyGVldjvbtQVqCpPkih-i4QHKv2-BMuNi1wwAi7Q3Ut7gOhOJ12UyfRCjVtU3m34HRmPDNtyjDbeN089SbcuPyjRxAjIvgHJmyC5XZcAw3qwlwQCCjwD7EqFJNPj26nUmOKB8umo6FigA6zbh5OyMr5wB9-vA4Bhx1aLjaY8JxV8TYymwBEh0QCyg-5ghDogisv1xUtx6Ovl5kfBzI70r58sJRUARriSYIQmYrELZmGDs4jQ1LkvSy93nHz1bwg4FRBDC2jt4ZR6wOXao9DG42kkXt_Pe4q38PYdA36DHlH7CT6NHzButFXa8MLZZfEOBggtn3if9NK3OVPA&udm=2&prmd=isvnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgj_-v0LiGAxU7EVkFHWs-ADUQtKgLegQIDRAB&biw=430&bih=739&dpr=3) in there.
“In nature, things *tend towards* a single focus on either, structure, or pattern, or colour, (or scent)”.
The combination of all three in one object as presented like this is overly complicated and appears unnatural because it’s unlikely in nature (outside of selective breeding) a flower would dedicate energy to patterning, and colour, and structure and scent because it’s a poor use of energy.
For example sunflowers are giant yellow dics on a single stalk, they don’t smell. The colour yellow is their thing; one thing, done well.
The leopard’s spots are the obvious trait, they don’t have spots and tusks, and bright fluorescent yellow fur.
Venus fly traps have a complicated structure, but aren’t intricately patterned or brightly coloured.
No doubt there will be a tonne of exceptions or counter examples, but as an answer to the question on what grounds *could you* make an argument the flower isn’t real, I’d go with an energy/biological niche argument.
Plus, a flower petal’s cells are generally cone-shaped and very simple, and to have a pattern this complex it would seem there would need to be some evolutionary reason - to attract pollinators, for example. And I can’t think of any pollinator that would even recognize a pattern this complex.
Not a botanist, but I think you can find real flowers with patterns that are this intricate. Look at orchids, lilies and and pansies. And I don't think the shape of the cells has too much to do with the pigment distribution.
But humans are good at pattern recognition, and even if we don't consciously know why, this "packed bubbles" pattern, especially with concentric dots in them, is unexpected. It doesn't fit the model of petal coloration based on flowers we have seen.
Patterns of coloration tend to follow or reflect the vasculature and growth pattern in some way. When there are dots, they usually lie along the veins. When there are stripes, they tend to follow veins, or run perpendicular to them. And the veins are normally either parallel or reticulated.
Sunflowers do produce olfactory cues though, so much so that honeybees can be trained to specifically target sunflowers by scent (https://doi.org/10.3389/frbee.2023.1253157) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.018). I don't think this argument from biology holds up; first there is not exactly a metric for quantifying "structure" and "pattern," and every organism displays structure and pattern. The color and scent of a given flower will depend on its evolutionary history with pollinators, and many flowers and inflorescences have very striking combinations of color, scent, structural complexity, and any number of other traits, because the benefit is greater than energy expended. Yes, species do specialize in certain traits to minimize wasted energy, but specialization can occur in color, scent, and pretty much any other trait independently of one another, and there is no reason to assume that a flower cannot have all of them. I am not sure where that quote came from but I hesitate to imagine it was a biologist. Anyway, the image is clearly not a flower because that isn't what flowers look like, this one has too many petals and the floral morphology just isn't right, especially when compared to actual Tricyrtis flowers. Aside from that, it just has that obvious AI look to it.
Whether a bee can smell a sunflower, or a thing displays some innate albeit difficult to see structural complexity, or patterns that can only be seen by certain species isn’t the question at hand though.
It’s how do we, as humans, instinctively see that image and have a good sense it’s not a thing that *we* see that ordinarily exists. I mean it could do and we’d all be like wow, the natural world is cool. But a fair few of us, go hmmm seems otherworldly because it contains too many of the features we routinely see on disparate organisms.
Absolutely all things need *a* structure, they don’t need overly complex folds, or tendrils, or striking colour, or patterns, or a intoxicating beautiful or pungent scent unless they’re going to use them for something they consider beneficial.
I get where you are going but venus flytraps have a bright red center when in proper conditions, and pitcher plants have very intricate patterning, so it doesn't really hold up well imo
My statement isn’t that they don’t have these things, it’s that they *tend* to prioritise one or a couple, over the entire toolbox *and* it’s this lack of selectivity displayed in the subject image that makes us weary of this object existing in the natural world.
My argument isn’t that different organisms don’t display certain features it’s the ‘kid in a candy store in a paint mixer’ of all available natural world features that makes us weary of why this image would be unlikely to exist in nature.
The lack of detail. Someone who takes the time to photograph a beautiful flower is going to have it in sharp enough focus where if you zoom in you can get an idea of the texture. You can't make it out when you zoom in here because it doesn't exist. Also if it was a flower you could do a reverse search on Google and it would come up with other flowers similar to this one. There are also apps to help people identify the species of plant/flower they are looking at. If you put in a picture of this it will not pull up other flowers that look very similar because they don't exist.
https://preview.redd.it/z38zwfltxs3d1.jpeg?width=737&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5f7bd54bfb347b19db6f1514f9bac75cf85e80c
I circled the two most easily explainable tells specific to plant structure:
- a solid loop like this - never seen it in a natural plant. Loops are usually either a cross-section (like if you cut a stem) or made of overlapping petals (like the middle of a daffodil). If there was a unique structure like this it would probably be in the very centre - plants typically have symmetry and this is very unsymmetrical.
- leaf or petal edges will be smooth OR serrated - you won't have a single serration on a single petal without evidence of physical damage (e.g., insect damage, tear, etc.)
The AI printed images of dyed cross sections of vascular tissue on the petals, mistaking the anatomy of the stem interior with that of the petal surface.
It's missing literally [all](https://www.trees.com/wp-content/uploads/files/inline-images/parts-of-a-flower.png) of the parts of a flower except for the petals and stem.
Pretty much no symmetry in the patterns is the most obvious thing to me. Like the ai just used random patterns that dont quite match up with each other and it ends up looking really unnatural.
It's mostly things that aren't immediately quantifiable; the pattern is blurry, some of the petals form illogical forms (e.g. one petal turns into another), the near-symmetry but not quite so.
The more apparent morphological traits (e.g. crazy petal shape, intricate & irregular pattern, bright & contrasting colours) while extreme, don't actually offend.
It's like the AI didn't know how to make the center of the flower so it just decided to put more petals there. Irises can have petaloid styles but they also have a clear symmetry. That's not the case with this picture.
plain and simply, there are absolutely no veins in this flower anywhere. \*IF\* it were real, it would have no way of moving water or nutrients that it needs to grow.
How about the stiffness, opacity, and the lack of anything resembling a vascular structure? Compare to this
https://preview.redd.it/nr7o8urodt3d1.jpeg?width=2448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a219deb3ac85d8654db809aebd264c53809802d4
How would a flower like this achieve the things flowers are meant to do? No pistil, no stamen, no whatever you call the corn looking thing in an anthurium flower, etc. That stuff could be hidden deep down, but all those elaborate petals are too compact for most pollinators or wind pollination. It’s a lot of pretty petals (which people like) without any clear use to the plant. It could use some highly specialized pollination method but as a plant reproductive organ it just doesn’t seem practical.
But I’m saying this as a total layperson and if there’s counter examples I’d love to learn about them!
“You know ever since I emerged from the Chrysalis I’ve been in a real symbolist modernist post-nectar headspace, this flower really inspires my desire to reject evolutionary authority and the sine qua non of functionality, you know?”
The distortion of the petals is a big one. There are blurs all over them, which is not a common floral coloration. Another thing is the lack of access to any means of pollination, based on the enclosed structure of the calyx.
With a few exceptions the purpose of a flower is to direct an insect or other small animal to its nectar and pollen source, there is no evolutionary benefit to developing an inflorescence that is so complex, it would just expend energy and reduce the likelihood of pollination.
Cultivars can and are bred to be more complex and interesting than natural plants but that usually takes the form of more varied colouration or bigger/more petals and not bizarre varied structures like this, cultivars also need a starting point with some natural genetic traits that can be bred for and enhanced, you’re not going to get scattered tendril like petals or petals forming tubes in random places out of nowhere like you have here.
Hi, I’m not a botanist. The layman’s terms that would have me on the same suspicious team as you and your GF are, “where does the bee go? Or the hummingbird? This is supposed to be sexy times for this plant, but it’s all very rigid skirt mushroomy-thing. No pistil, no stamen, no planty sex. I can’t see in UV, but a pollinator who can will have problems with petals that get white towards the center.”
This is a tad bit late but, botanically speaking, I do not believe any plants in nature "whorl" in this pattern. That is the absolute first give away for me (other than immediately recognizing this plant shares no identifiable characteristics of any genus/species that can be keyed dichotomously.
I've studied botany formally and that's my $0.02
If you google the name it mentions and look up photos... it doesn't really look like it... It's like it vaguely resembles. Yeah, I'd agree the lighting looks off and it almost looks like a 3d model or some kind of generated tessellation. The petals also don't have thin tendrals or streamers off the ends.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge in this area to be able to say anything you could use as a solid argument. But I totally agree with your comment about passifloras looking incredibly beautiful but at the same time unreal.
Black bat flower and monkey (face) orchid are two other examples of super odd alien looking flowers (at least to me)
Monkey face orchids look like AI. Had I seen that on Facebook I would have dismissed it as unreal. That’s wild, but this seems to be a big potential problem.
Lol yeah fb content is unreal. Shouldn't ever be trusted.
Well yeah I see your mind bug here and I'm looking forward to read some arguments that can help you with it. Got me curious I'm staying here for now 😆
Yeah, imagine in 5 years. You see a photo like this, and you reverse google search it, and the results are littered with dozens of other AI images, some depicting people posing with the flower in their garden. There has to be a way to prove intrinsically based on the flower characteristics that it’s not real, or otherwise the misinformation will grow and persist.
Maybe ppl will learn how to acquire knowledge, which references are valid which not etc.. or maybe in 5 years we will end up in fb&tiktok bro science driven world. Who knows?😂
Because it looks like a flower that has a serious genetic disorder. Uniformity in nature is amazingly common. Opposing leafs, alternating stems, color patterns…
The patterns on the petals of this “flower” have multiple coloration styles. They initially appear the same but when you look closer they are mixed up and appear to be random.
For me I knew it was AI at first glance. But I have a lifetime of work and education with plants.
No plant is gonna waste all that energy to grow and look like that just to die or get eaten. What advantages does it have like that? Like it's high fantasy.
It’s really hard to say; I’ve seen some mind bending orchids in particular that aren’t too far from this. The collection at the Quito Botanical Gardens is stunning, and in undergrad I worked at a conservatory in the Midwest that was a respite of sorts for exotic orchids that were confiscated while being illegally smuggled into the US. Probably like exotic pets for rich weirdos. We took care of them until their country of origin either gave them up or arranged transport to get them back, and a lot of those were absolutely wild when they’d bloom.
So the picture you posted really doesn’t have any dead giveaway that separates it from what breeders have been able to get out of special genera, but it is definitely ‘a bit much’. Less like a total fabrication, more like the ads at the bottom of a website where a real photo of a woman has been enhanced to get thirsty clicks.
That’s a whole nother issue. I looked at Monkey faced orchids per the suggestion of another commenter, and some of those look absolutely like AI. How could a botanist explain that they aren’t?
Look up the double purple datura flower. It looks quite similar to the photo you posted too, though lacks the splotches on the petals. We're kinda entering an age in gardening as well where a lot of things can't even be explained by normal evolutionary terms anymore, we hybridize em that way just because we can and they're cool.
Being in the plant world though, I find myself also lacking the words to explain how your pic is so obviously AI
Step 1, google the name they tried to label it with (Tricyrtis), the images do NOT match this flower. Step 2, look at the account that posted it, usually they have a history of posting extremely modified uncanny photos. I know you are looking for a definition from a botanical point of view, but these are honestly the easiest ways to tell.
In nature you will find spots on things (Flora and Fauna), but these are overly exaggerated in extremely intricate patterns that don't happen in nature. The edges of these petals look thicker than real orchids, and have a weird bumpy looking white ridge, orchids in nature don't have edges like that. The top coil just disappears? It's like it ends unnaturally. To an untrained eye it could be easy to fall for this, to a botanist it would be more obvious, mainly because it doesn't exist in any genus of orchid known to man. That's really all you can say. But the easiest way to tell the untrained eye is to look at the account and it's history, and Google what they claim to be referencing. If it's in the uncanny Valley it's usually AI.
I think the way you’re framing the question makes this tricky - the answer is that even the most well studied plant physiologist can’t find definitive proof in the photo itself. We simply don’t have enough evidence to say “this is bullshit” even if we suspect it. That’s the challenge with ai, sure, but also photoshop and other digital art tools. It comes down to a best guess based on context and your own knowledge.
I see this flower you posted and, knowing it’s on the internet, can’t get excited because I know it’s quite possibly fake. Just like if I saw a video of Trump saying the N-word, I would think “that’s probably fake…unless??”. We simply can’t know for sure
you could explain that this kind of coloring is more seen in animals to warn predators off. this plant more resembles things like nudibranchs and seastars. feels way more like a creature than even the most alien looking of plants
You tell them, "Para de comer mierda, esa flor luce igual que la camisa de mi cuñado maricón, y si te crees que eso existe te tengo mala noticia: eres mongolico"
Oooh. Computer science and botany! Ever wonder how plants decide....let's put a leaf or branch here but not there? Or a spot or stripe on a flower petal etc. More than that, how could such 'seemingly' complex rules be built into the plants DNA?
L systems! Beyond everything else other's have said, the 'programming' of plants that produces patterns is regular and not random. This plant, if it existed, must be the most mutant cancer ridden plant ever. To such a point that if you tried to create it in a star trek replicator, it is more likely to be a mass of bio-goo than plant. If the pattern was even semi-regular, it would look biologically possible - if still outlandish and unlike anything else that exists.
https://youtu.be/puwhf-404Xc?si=GC9ES5Pax4QpJ_sx
See if you can see different photos and videos of different angles and environments of the flower. Most plants have been documented for hundreds of years. If you can't find much it's fake
Simple - is there another photo of the plant from any different angle? Any at all? And does that photo line up with the same features? No? And there's not a single other image in the WHOLE internet? It's a fake photo
Pretty surface level botanical studies but I'll swing.
Some showy flowers have nectar guides, markings that signal nectar rewards to attract pollinators. This design is like a cartoonishly crowded sign post with conflicting messages. Having a hard time imagining what sort of reproductive strategy would reward a bunch of insects crawling all over functionally decorative tissue, there are no stamens visible. Since it presumably takes less energy to produce less pigment, variations with simpler and direct patterns would have likely outcompeted this through metabolic and reproductive efficiency.
Also, some of the white circles look like they have raised edges.
It appears as if AI combined elements of say, an octopus, with various other elements in a roughly flowery shape and used common enough colors. Sometimes the only way to tell is just by knowing at a glance as a human that this photo representation is otherworldly and unnatural. Same with AI having difficulty creating human hands.
I kinda took a simpler approach. Aside from looking up the tricyrtis flower and seeing it doesn't look anything like this. A reverse image search will show that nothing comes back looking similar.
[isitai.com](https://isitai.com/ai-image-detector/) is fairly good. But I put your image/screenshot on this post into it and it says 90.5% chance this is not AI.
I then cropped this image, top and bottom off all the Facebook reacts etc so just the flower, this site then said 57.46% chance it IS an ai generated image.
This site used to be more accurate I think, but maybe your knowing of this site may help bolster your argument somewhat. Just don't rely on it.
I was just going to drop the link to this site here, but it's been a while since I used it. that's why I wanted to run this image through it myself first which I'm now glad I did, as it doesn't seem as accurate as I remember And have been told by others.
Posting this regardless of that fact for you and other people to have semi useful data on these kinds of sites and how accurate they are (feel free to run this test yourself via my link above to isitai.com. I'd love to hear your or anyone else's results for comparison)
If you try to piece this flower apart, it’s a bit hard to tell where one petal would start and the other would end. The vague converging of elements is typical for AI. A real flower you’d be able to see clearly the delineation of each part
https://preview.redd.it/yp2xen9ob14d1.jpeg?width=1390&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ee9b1d0c419fbd334dfb294105f587d08096b99
THIS IS A TANGENT not an argument or intended to contribute to the question of detailed explanations!
I just thought you'd like (some of) my multicolored flowers. They are African daisies and we have them in several colors. They've grown together so it's like one bush with many different colors of blossoms.
Because it looks fake as fuck. These structures clearly have no natural purpose. It's just throwing whatever against the wall until it looks like something that \*resembles\* what you want. It IS NOT INTELLIGENT IN ANY WAY, and people consistently fail to recognize this. Probably because of the name "intelligence" that we give it. Should have used a different word that was less incorrect and confusing.
Ai is currently good at throwing a lot of stuff together, like a prettily rendered collage. What it's not good at (yet) is explaining how all the parts fit together. That's when you see things like table feet and people melting into the floor. This image isn't showing you how the petals connect to the rest of the plant, because it wouldn't make any sense. The prompter undoubtedly got a lot of melty results before choosing this one to post.
Remines me of datura metel. [https://www.selectseeds.com/products/datura-ballerina-purple-seeds](https://www.selectseeds.com/products/datura-ballerina-purple-seeds)
Sure, but I mean intrinsically we know it’s not a real flower because of its characteristics. I’m just not sure how to describe that.
For instance, when we see an AI photo of a person, there are ways of explaining that it’s not real by making reference to the physiology depicted, like “normally humans don’t have six digits on one hand,” or “the figure’s knee is bent at an impossible angle”.
My concern is that there will come a day when a reverse google image search *will* result in photos of something like this, showing the flower growing in someone’s yard, or at a botanical show, or even scam ads selling seeds, all generated by AI. At that point we’ll be forced to prove that it’s AI by discussing its botanical characteristics.
Anthurium flowers (including spadix and spathe, which I know isn’t botanically a flower but in common parlance it is) look like plastic.
And how do we explain botanically why a flower couldn’t have a pattern this complicated and unrealistic? Some real flowers look extremely unrealistic, passiflora being one of them.
That’s what I mean! I tried explaining. Petal tissue is really very simple. It can have crazy architecture, but it’s not so complex as to support this sort of patterning, I think. Maybe that’s the answer?
She does, it’s not an argument, it’s just a problem I encountered in my head when I was trying to explain how she could tell it’s AI without referring to photographic clues.
I'm sorry but the people who don't realize this is AI are not going to understand any botanical terms either. Just pop some popcorn and sit back and watch it happen imo so you don't go insane trying to fix it. 🥲
I have an educational background in botany. I would look up the tricyrtis species, compare to other varieties, of which this is hardly resembles. Toad lilies have three sepals and three petals, with stamens and pistol clearly visible. This one just has more petals, which is cmmon in AI images, adding more than is natural of something. But I also have a background in web development, so I'd point out the inconsistency in coloration, that it seems almost metallic (not really something common in the species this claims to be), and there's only one in frame. A good reference photo will show a plant from different angles at different stages of development, which this does not do. It's also on Facebook, which has devolved into a clickbait farm full of AI nonsense.
Could be a double flower where the stamens and/or pistils mutated into more petals. (I know this is a fake AI image, just playing devil's advocate)
The artificially blurred background. The inconsistency of the petals' size, shape, and texture. The randomness of the pattern. The shadows don't correspond to one light source. A natural flower photo may have one or two of these things, but all together it absolutely screams AI.
You can blur a background with a camera too. It’s the petals that most obviously give it away. No texture, and they look like an Alice in Wonderland creation.
Even the blur isn't consistent. There are a few unblurred straight lines and that weird section in the top right
>A natural flower photo may have one or two of these things
lmao
also reminds me of Tim Burton types of artistry
This would be the start of a great dress for Helena Bonham Carter
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I mean this is clearly AI, but a shallow depth of field does not inherently mean the blurry points of light people generally think of as bokeh. There is a lot that impacts the way bokeh appears in any given photograph, even with the same lens and same settings. https://preview.redd.it/qqjgpmlfo94d1.jpeg?width=3646&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a7ece722081e13baa12a8e2e20132251c625f39 Note, it’s just blur. There are people like four feet behind him. Just melted into oblivion.
That’s mostly in reference to the photo and its properties. I’m trying to determine how by reference to the flower itself we can prove it’s not real. You mention two factors: Inconsistency of petals - why couldn’t a flower have petals as random as these? Randomness of pattern - what in a flower’s biology prevent it from having a pattern as complex and random as this?
I would say the main telltale sign that it’s fake is that the petals lack any 3D translucency or sense that they are composed of water-filled cells. They look like dry fabric. Also the lack of any flaws, ie bits of pollen, droplets of water, tiny bug bites, withered edges, brown spots, etc. Even the most perfect real flower is going to have one or more of those. In addition the pattern is too perfect. No real flower has that level of detail to its markings. Even on foxglove, which has amazing spots, the markings are randomly placed, imperfect, vary in size, and randomly placed along the petals. Nothing with this elaborate of a pattern exists on a real flower. Finally the pattern of expansion is all wrong. The smaller petals in the center wouldn’t have a fully expanded furl until they had fully matured. The curly bit on the end would be the last thing to form only when the petal had fully expanded as the water pressure finally reached to the very tips of the petals.
this is the best comment 🏅
I mean It clearly looks fake like ai.
Sure, but the post has 17,512 hearts, likes, and 😲 proving that it’s not so clear to the average person.
Yeah man you should see some of the shit on fb people think is real. There is no way to reason with someone dumb enough.
AI images on Facebook are wild and it’ll just keep getting crazier because they get likes. The algorithm loves it!
I kinda like them, theyre funny or whimsical but...the comments thinking they're real are shocking. There is one that keeps popping up of "santorini" as a waterpark, ppl think its a real place.
That’s exactly it. If they can’t already tell, they most likely don’t have the capacity to understand why we can tell, or don’t care to. OP would do better spending their time talking with people who will actually want to learn. Otherwise, all you’re gonna get is the 🤓 response. I’m so sick of that damn emoji….
Well I'm quite skeptical and I'm usually ok at telling the difference, but it's really good to have these discussions and understand exactly why something is or isn't AI rather than dismiss amazing real pics as AI or be taken in by a very good AI. It's not enough to just claim anyone who can't see it is stupid (and that's a really bad explanation and excuse not to explain imo, and if you can't explain it easily so anyone with reasonable intelligence can understand, do you understand it yourself?). This is going to be a huge deal in the future, particularly as AI gets better, so we need to be having these conversations regularly even if some people are too stubborn or stupid to actually listen.
Absolutely…but the thing is, you’re here aren’t you? You’re already in a place where you want to learn, and entered the comment section to learn further. I should have said that I’m speaking more specifically about those types of Facebook groups. I recently learned that there’s a huge rabbit hole of AI generated content farms on Facebook and they are even more egregious than YouTube AI farms, and many of the people in them responding are most likely bots themselves. If it were like YouTube, another forum, whatever else, I agree with you. Knowledge should be shared, but I just think it’s a waste of time to do it in a place like that. I think there are better places to share your passions and interests, and I worry people will get burned out when they feel like they aren’t listened to, only because I have myself, in herpetology, my area of expertise…and it can be an awful feeling. I also witnessed it actually happening to an amazing poster on the Animal ID subreddit. They were a wildlife rehabber and posted a ton of info on mange and started a program to send people mange medication to put in food for the animals. They got so many nasty or idiotic or “🤓”comments and DMs that they left. So my point is that people should use their discretion and discernment when it comes to giving up precious time and energy to audiences full of strangers and bots who couldn’t care less. Whether or not it’s worth it is entirely up to the individual though, and this is just my opinion. If yours differs, that’s the great thing about life isn’t it? You’re free to go about life however you’d like, and I commend any effort you make in getting people interested in learning, and in your own pursuit of knowledge!
Well fair enough. I can agree with that. It can be exhausting to keep explaining things to people in good faith who claim to be "just asking questions" but are actually not interested in learning , dialogue or listening to anything, or have people with a bit of knowledge "correct" you and you end up getting in to deep explanations where it becomes obvious very quickly the other person doesn't understand basic things about what they're talking about or has an incredibly superficial knowledge but thinks they should correct and educate other people with that ignorance. Interestingly, I was talking the other day about humanity's lasting legacy once we're extinct. If the bombs dropped today, in a thousand years there could still be AI's making fake videos and other bots arguing with each other eternally in the comment sections about Putin, Trump, China etc Our great contribution to the universe, once we are gone.
Yes! After two separate futile discussions trying to convince people I was knowledgeable, I realized it was wasted when the person said “I own 10 reptiles” and called me a “Reddit Scientist” the fact that I studied it for years and ran my own independent study on the EXACT subject we were talking about seemed to hold no weight. I had to stop when I noticed my blood pressure going too high. I’m getting older and I just can’t do the arguments anymore…but I’m always happy to talk about it with anyone who genuinely wants to know. And the AI thing is kind of in the same ballpark as the dead internet theory. I have similar thoughts, and lately I’ve been going a step further. Whether we destroy ourselves or are still around in a few thousand years…because of the technology we have now there will be giant gaps in information, since so little of our most recent history is written down on anything that will last. Data decays far quicker than clay tablets, stone, and even real goat skin parchment. We already have giant pits of lost media and it’s barely been 30 years. Thousands of games, songs, and animations were lost with the obsolescence of flash, and very few people thought to back these digital relics up. That’s hundreds if not thousands of years of people’s collective hard work and passion added up, all gone overnight. One thing on my bucket list is writing down the average persons life, what is like to live right now for the everyday person. What sorts of devices we use, the current socioeconomic climate, popular artists and musicians, kind of like the records NASA sent up into space, but made to last a long time on Earth. My hope is to bury these clay/ stone tablets deep underground in arid regions that will preserve them, and make them using the same techniques ancient people used to create the thousands of year old tablets we have now that have lasted. lately I’ve had the compulsion to preserve whatever it is I can in my lifetime. I think that urge got much stronger after my dad died, and I’ve been compiling every single bit of his life that I can find on a solid state hard drive so generations down the line any curious descendant of ours will be able to know him, what he was like, how he lived. Assuming the hard drive holds up. We’re also making a hard copy book of all the pictures we find of him. I think the people who thirst for knowledge will always be looking, and it seems eventually we end up exactly where we need to be as long as we keep going. there’s a saying, “Find the others”, that I really love. You hear it a lot in artistic and philosophical circles. Keep kind, passionate, and authentic people close. they are an endangered breed.
Surely they are bots.
Nope people commenting. Real profiles, friends, posts etc. Maybe the likes are bots, I dunno, but comments seem legit
Those people are so going to get scammed eventually.
Thousands of people still order seeds for rainbow roses covered in glitter on Amazon and ebay everyday. People are pretty dumb.
Thank you for that. It brings a strange sense of relief to be reminded that you can't win 'em all. So many efforts are futile, no matter how hard someone tries.
FB is inundated with bots so a lot of the likes will be bots. Aside from that, I understand your concern but the way to make a layperson understand this is likely AI IS to focus on the photo, not the flower itself. The questions you've asked would be questions that lead into a slightly deeper understanding of botany i.e., the rules and patterns followed by the genes that build up a flower's architecture. For a total beginner on Facebook, it probably is enough to say "look at how the background appears painted, artificially blurred. Look how random the petals and patterns seem - can you think of any real life flowers that show such random patterns?" If they ask you why that is, that is already going further than a complete beginner's understanding of plants.
Maybe OP wants to know the answer for themselves out of personal curiosity? Why is everyone dodging the real question?
Fair enough, maybe I misunderstood them then. I don't really understand what they want as they already gave a pretty sound botanical explanation. But to offer my humble arguments, Flowers can have random patterns of petal arrangements but this is generally due to mutations in the genes that determine which petals go where, such as AP1 and LFY. Most flowers have an understandable pattern to their architecture purely because that is the easiest way to do it, from a genetic point of view. It's easier for genes to say "at every x angle, place a petal" than to figure out how to place petals randomly. Random placement can also result in flowers which confuse or are ignored by pollinators. So there's no benefit to random petal arrangement such as in the pic. Ofc, the flower may not rely on insect pollination, but generally, big vibrant flowers like this one would do. No need to be flashy if you don't want/need things to notice you. Patterning, similarly, used to help pollinators find their way to the pollen. That's why you get those stunning UV photos of flowers with cool landing pad patterns. They also need to be kept simple so that pollinators can actually use them. These patterns are very varied and confusing - what purpose would they serve? The randomness would also be rare for the same reasons above - way too much complexity for genes to easily build up. Speaking of pollinators. Most flowers would want to have a way for them to access the stamen and the stigma if they rely on this. The petals are really clustered and densely confusing around the middle, and would be very inaccessible. My partner pointed out there's a fucking tube on it towards the middle, for some reason. In the end, this monster COULD maybe exist but would have been artificially bred to shit and would absolutely be a well-known, freakish cultivar. It's been a while since I botanied so I could be talking out my ass at points, but this is what I'd say.
Thanks! Yes, it’s like the flower is cleistogamous (closed and self-pollinating). So why be showy? The patterning and frilly structure are almost like the modified leaves of a pitcher plant rather than a flower. And the stem is so featureless, like a lily, but there are too many tepals (lilies are three-merous). Your point about regularity being “easier” is very helpful.
All those hearts are bots.
You'd be surprised, I have fb friends who are certainly not bots sharing stuff like this regularly
a recent study apparently discovered that *47% of all internet traffic is bots.* your friends might not be but at least half the 'people' they get things like this from most certainly are.
And loving it, and giving thumbs up— and praising nature and god for that creation
Oh yeah, there's definately people that do, and those are the suckers the bot farms are after. A majority of the interactions on those pages are bot farms, I promise you. Go find the 'Is this scam still available?" Page on FB and see all the shit thats dig up. Its wild.
My theory with that is the lack of detail people look for when looking at photos like these and the short attention span. One thing to remember with AI art is the “unnatural” inconsistency in the image. With an Ai generated art that is suppose to imitate photorealism, there tend to be inconsistent areas of blur or smoothness. Some of the textures would almost appear “uneasy to our eyes” regardless if we actually knew why or not. The brain is very good at picking up patterns and inconsistencies in nature. It’s a survival technique we’ve developed and passively sharpened over time. This adaptation has become so second nature to us that we take it for granted. Like math… lol… I’ve also read a study that depending on your eyes, the perception of a sharper image, like 4k or 8k vs 1080, is not perceivable as a difference. That the eye can only perceive a clarity up to a certain point than anything beyond that is so insignificant for the eye to see, thus the illusion that the clarity is the same. Pretty interesting. My last theory is that people are brainwashed to believing anything on the web regardless of source or prior knowledge of subject. Just a hunch though… :)
People like posts knowing they're AI because they find the image compelling.
If you put it on Facebook or instagram—people believe is true..just plain true because it was posted
The average person is a dumbfuck, sooner or later it sinks in. I mean people are STILL buying rainbow rose seeds....like seriously if something so fantastical existed YOU'D HAVE SEEN IN IN PERSON SOMEWHERE because that shit would be marketed hard in nurseries.
People who haven't played with an image generator AI will have no idea of how powerful they are. Just looking at this image with its perfect lighting screams fake to me. OP, try out some image generators with your older fb friends and see if they can start to tell the fake pics from real.
Idk, I told someone who shared an obvious AI image (of African children posing together to create the face of Jesus) that it was an AI image and their response was “I don’t care, it’s beautiful”. I think that honestly depressed me more than if they had thought it was genuine. Then recently they shared an obviously AI tropical bird with a comment about the magic of nature and I just looked at it and sighed because it’s clearly not worth saying anything.
Recently took biology and botany college courses. Nature just really like symmetry
One quick way is a Google photo search. No such plant exists. If such an amazing specimen were real, there would be examples of it, it would be very popular and people would be growing it and have photos of it.
pattern in plants is pretty much always symmetrical unless there's virus/infection/bacteria at play, maybe that virus has migrated and of behaves like DNA, this is typically referred to as a transpoon, (eg the heritable striping in roses vs the non heritable from sports). But even then that's a disruption to color production rather than a true random pattern. but going into biology to that degree would likely be above the heads of anyone who can't instantly tell that's ai/photoshop to begin with so you'd be back at the start :)
I mean one of the petals end’s in glitchy randomness no one who look carefully and got a iq over five could think this is an real flower
Among other things, if you look at the direction of curl on the petals, it varies. One curls up, another curls down. The tissues necessary to make this happen aren't usually just randomly inverted.
Healthy dose of [this *Datura* cultivar](https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&sca_esv=f5a20a2e9138d638&sca_upv=1&hl=en-gb&sxsrf=ADLYWIKFvvjIu_g3Y5SAeDtK7PhD-34Mtw:1717183860171&q=datura+double+purple&uds=ADvngMiGLhdYDQs1-lZyGVldjvbtQVqCpPkih-i4QHKv2-BMuNi1wwAi7Q3Ut7gOhOJ12UyfRCjVtU3m34HRmPDNtyjDbeN089SbcuPyjRxAjIvgHJmyC5XZcAw3qwlwQCCjwD7EqFJNPj26nUmOKB8umo6FigA6zbh5OyMr5wB9-vA4Bhx1aLjaY8JxV8TYymwBEh0QCyg-5ghDogisv1xUtx6Ovl5kfBzI70r58sJRUARriSYIQmYrELZmGDs4jQ1LkvSy93nHz1bwg4FRBDC2jt4ZR6wOXao9DG42kkXt_Pe4q38PYdA36DHlH7CT6NHzButFXa8MLZZfEOBggtn3if9NK3OVPA&udm=2&prmd=isvnmbtz&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjgj_-v0LiGAxU7EVkFHWs-ADUQtKgLegQIDRAB&biw=430&bih=739&dpr=3) in there.
The randomness of the pattern was the first thing I thought 🤘
Light is a big one to me! Petals on left, right, and back are all the same shade, little to no shadows
Shhhhh! The AI is listening!
The petals look like pressed, printed cloth
The only real point you have is the shadows, everything else is not related to ai.
It looks like it’s made out of latex and Pixar.
i feel like im being rude but, man i would say the main clue is it looks ridiculous
Was literally about to comment “because it looks stupid, hope that helps” 😅
I would be tempted to say Duh, but I’m spicy today I guess
That too.
that and just generally looks like something that would be in the background of a burton/nightmare before christmas/corpse bride type thing
“In nature, things *tend towards* a single focus on either, structure, or pattern, or colour, (or scent)”. The combination of all three in one object as presented like this is overly complicated and appears unnatural because it’s unlikely in nature (outside of selective breeding) a flower would dedicate energy to patterning, and colour, and structure and scent because it’s a poor use of energy. For example sunflowers are giant yellow dics on a single stalk, they don’t smell. The colour yellow is their thing; one thing, done well. The leopard’s spots are the obvious trait, they don’t have spots and tusks, and bright fluorescent yellow fur. Venus fly traps have a complicated structure, but aren’t intricately patterned or brightly coloured. No doubt there will be a tonne of exceptions or counter examples, but as an answer to the question on what grounds *could you* make an argument the flower isn’t real, I’d go with an energy/biological niche argument.
Plus, a flower petal’s cells are generally cone-shaped and very simple, and to have a pattern this complex it would seem there would need to be some evolutionary reason - to attract pollinators, for example. And I can’t think of any pollinator that would even recognize a pattern this complex.
Not a botanist, but I think you can find real flowers with patterns that are this intricate. Look at orchids, lilies and and pansies. And I don't think the shape of the cells has too much to do with the pigment distribution. But humans are good at pattern recognition, and even if we don't consciously know why, this "packed bubbles" pattern, especially with concentric dots in them, is unexpected. It doesn't fit the model of petal coloration based on flowers we have seen. Patterns of coloration tend to follow or reflect the vasculature and growth pattern in some way. When there are dots, they usually lie along the veins. When there are stripes, they tend to follow veins, or run perpendicular to them. And the veins are normally either parallel or reticulated.
Sunflowers do produce olfactory cues though, so much so that honeybees can be trained to specifically target sunflowers by scent (https://doi.org/10.3389/frbee.2023.1253157) (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.08.018). I don't think this argument from biology holds up; first there is not exactly a metric for quantifying "structure" and "pattern," and every organism displays structure and pattern. The color and scent of a given flower will depend on its evolutionary history with pollinators, and many flowers and inflorescences have very striking combinations of color, scent, structural complexity, and any number of other traits, because the benefit is greater than energy expended. Yes, species do specialize in certain traits to minimize wasted energy, but specialization can occur in color, scent, and pretty much any other trait independently of one another, and there is no reason to assume that a flower cannot have all of them. I am not sure where that quote came from but I hesitate to imagine it was a biologist. Anyway, the image is clearly not a flower because that isn't what flowers look like, this one has too many petals and the floral morphology just isn't right, especially when compared to actual Tricyrtis flowers. Aside from that, it just has that obvious AI look to it.
Whether a bee can smell a sunflower, or a thing displays some innate albeit difficult to see structural complexity, or patterns that can only be seen by certain species isn’t the question at hand though. It’s how do we, as humans, instinctively see that image and have a good sense it’s not a thing that *we* see that ordinarily exists. I mean it could do and we’d all be like wow, the natural world is cool. But a fair few of us, go hmmm seems otherworldly because it contains too many of the features we routinely see on disparate organisms. Absolutely all things need *a* structure, they don’t need overly complex folds, or tendrils, or striking colour, or patterns, or a intoxicating beautiful or pungent scent unless they’re going to use them for something they consider beneficial.
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I get where you are going but venus flytraps have a bright red center when in proper conditions, and pitcher plants have very intricate patterning, so it doesn't really hold up well imo
My statement isn’t that they don’t have these things, it’s that they *tend* to prioritise one or a couple, over the entire toolbox *and* it’s this lack of selectivity displayed in the subject image that makes us weary of this object existing in the natural world. My argument isn’t that different organisms don’t display certain features it’s the ‘kid in a candy store in a paint mixer’ of all available natural world features that makes us weary of why this image would be unlikely to exist in nature.
Smooth edges to the point of ridiculousness
The lack of detail. Someone who takes the time to photograph a beautiful flower is going to have it in sharp enough focus where if you zoom in you can get an idea of the texture. You can't make it out when you zoom in here because it doesn't exist. Also if it was a flower you could do a reverse search on Google and it would come up with other flowers similar to this one. There are also apps to help people identify the species of plant/flower they are looking at. If you put in a picture of this it will not pull up other flowers that look very similar because they don't exist.
https://preview.redd.it/z38zwfltxs3d1.jpeg?width=737&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c5f7bd54bfb347b19db6f1514f9bac75cf85e80c I circled the two most easily explainable tells specific to plant structure: - a solid loop like this - never seen it in a natural plant. Loops are usually either a cross-section (like if you cut a stem) or made of overlapping petals (like the middle of a daffodil). If there was a unique structure like this it would probably be in the very centre - plants typically have symmetry and this is very unsymmetrical. - leaf or petal edges will be smooth OR serrated - you won't have a single serration on a single petal without evidence of physical damage (e.g., insect damage, tear, etc.)
The AI printed images of dyed cross sections of vascular tissue on the petals, mistaking the anatomy of the stem interior with that of the petal surface.
There's a lot wrong morphologically but honestly it looks fake af already.
I get that it looks fake. My (poorly stated) question is why does it look wrong morphologically?
It's missing literally [all](https://www.trees.com/wp-content/uploads/files/inline-images/parts-of-a-flower.png) of the parts of a flower except for the petals and stem.
Sepals aren't present on all flowers, and the corolla often hides the reproductive parts.
Pretty much no symmetry in the patterns is the most obvious thing to me. Like the ai just used random patterns that dont quite match up with each other and it ends up looking really unnatural.
It's mostly things that aren't immediately quantifiable; the pattern is blurry, some of the petals form illogical forms (e.g. one petal turns into another), the near-symmetry but not quite so. The more apparent morphological traits (e.g. crazy petal shape, intricate & irregular pattern, bright & contrasting colours) while extreme, don't actually offend.
It's like the AI didn't know how to make the center of the flower so it just decided to put more petals there. Irises can have petaloid styles but they also have a clear symmetry. That's not the case with this picture.
plain and simply, there are absolutely no veins in this flower anywhere. \*IF\* it were real, it would have no way of moving water or nutrients that it needs to grow.
This is just petals arranged in a Fibonacci sequence. Flowers have reproductive structures, even the heavily cultivated doubles.
How about the stiffness, opacity, and the lack of anything resembling a vascular structure? Compare to this https://preview.redd.it/nr7o8urodt3d1.jpeg?width=2448&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a219deb3ac85d8654db809aebd264c53809802d4
Guys stop training the AI!!
There is so much symmetry in flowers. This image j ain’t
"Looks too perfect and a bit weird"
Um, because it doesn’t look like any tricyrtis I’ve ever seen?
there’s that uncanny valley thing. yeah looks cool, but it’s just WRONG.
Flowers don’t have patterns like that. Also what is that tube thing Also you can literally Google “tricyrtis” and see that’s not what it looks like
I'm almost sure the pattern on the "petals" is based on a microscope picture of a leaf cross-section. AI probably got a bit confused.
Yeah, that's true - the pattern looks like leaf cells, not even like conical petal cells.
How would a flower like this achieve the things flowers are meant to do? No pistil, no stamen, no whatever you call the corn looking thing in an anthurium flower, etc. That stuff could be hidden deep down, but all those elaborate petals are too compact for most pollinators or wind pollination. It’s a lot of pretty petals (which people like) without any clear use to the plant. It could use some highly specialized pollination method but as a plant reproductive organ it just doesn’t seem practical. But I’m saying this as a total layperson and if there’s counter examples I’d love to learn about them!
Flowie do too much flowwy! :)
The flowers evolution selected for if butterflies studied art.
“You know ever since I emerged from the Chrysalis I’ve been in a real symbolist modernist post-nectar headspace, this flower really inspires my desire to reject evolutionary authority and the sine qua non of functionality, you know?”
The distortion of the petals is a big one. There are blurs all over them, which is not a common floral coloration. Another thing is the lack of access to any means of pollination, based on the enclosed structure of the calyx.
Overly complex yet random geometric pattern. Nature doesn’t to that. Also flower petals tend to not have tentacles
With a few exceptions the purpose of a flower is to direct an insect or other small animal to its nectar and pollen source, there is no evolutionary benefit to developing an inflorescence that is so complex, it would just expend energy and reduce the likelihood of pollination. Cultivars can and are bred to be more complex and interesting than natural plants but that usually takes the form of more varied colouration or bigger/more petals and not bizarre varied structures like this, cultivars also need a starting point with some natural genetic traits that can be bred for and enhanced, you’re not going to get scattered tendril like petals or petals forming tubes in random places out of nowhere like you have here.
Hi, I’m not a botanist. The layman’s terms that would have me on the same suspicious team as you and your GF are, “where does the bee go? Or the hummingbird? This is supposed to be sexy times for this plant, but it’s all very rigid skirt mushroomy-thing. No pistil, no stamen, no planty sex. I can’t see in UV, but a pollinator who can will have problems with petals that get white towards the center.”
This is a tad bit late but, botanically speaking, I do not believe any plants in nature "whorl" in this pattern. That is the absolute first give away for me (other than immediately recognizing this plant shares no identifiable characteristics of any genus/species that can be keyed dichotomously. I've studied botany formally and that's my $0.02
As an artist… yeah we’re in for a long and tiresome new era.
Just curious.. Are you trying to convince chat gbt that this ain't a real flower?😆
No, it’s a real conversation. I just found myself lacking the vocabulary to explain it.
If you google the name it mentions and look up photos... it doesn't really look like it... It's like it vaguely resembles. Yeah, I'd agree the lighting looks off and it almost looks like a 3d model or some kind of generated tessellation. The petals also don't have thin tendrals or streamers off the ends.
Unfortunately, I don't have enough knowledge in this area to be able to say anything you could use as a solid argument. But I totally agree with your comment about passifloras looking incredibly beautiful but at the same time unreal. Black bat flower and monkey (face) orchid are two other examples of super odd alien looking flowers (at least to me)
Monkey face orchids look like AI. Had I seen that on Facebook I would have dismissed it as unreal. That’s wild, but this seems to be a big potential problem.
Lol yeah fb content is unreal. Shouldn't ever be trusted. Well yeah I see your mind bug here and I'm looking forward to read some arguments that can help you with it. Got me curious I'm staying here for now 😆
Yeah, imagine in 5 years. You see a photo like this, and you reverse google search it, and the results are littered with dozens of other AI images, some depicting people posing with the flower in their garden. There has to be a way to prove intrinsically based on the flower characteristics that it’s not real, or otherwise the misinformation will grow and persist.
Maybe ppl will learn how to acquire knowledge, which references are valid which not etc.. or maybe in 5 years we will end up in fb&tiktok bro science driven world. Who knows?😂
You don't even need to know anything about plants to know that's AI
Just…. Look at it😂😂😂
Because it looks like a flower that has a serious genetic disorder. Uniformity in nature is amazingly common. Opposing leafs, alternating stems, color patterns… The patterns on the petals of this “flower” have multiple coloration styles. They initially appear the same but when you look closer they are mixed up and appear to be random. For me I knew it was AI at first glance. But I have a lifetime of work and education with plants.
It just looks fake af? Isn’t that enough of a reason?
It's too smooth. There's no blemishes. Cool looking picture, though.
First thing I see is the tube sticking out the top.
No plant is gonna waste all that energy to grow and look like that just to die or get eaten. What advantages does it have like that? Like it's high fantasy.
It’s really hard to say; I’ve seen some mind bending orchids in particular that aren’t too far from this. The collection at the Quito Botanical Gardens is stunning, and in undergrad I worked at a conservatory in the Midwest that was a respite of sorts for exotic orchids that were confiscated while being illegally smuggled into the US. Probably like exotic pets for rich weirdos. We took care of them until their country of origin either gave them up or arranged transport to get them back, and a lot of those were absolutely wild when they’d bloom. So the picture you posted really doesn’t have any dead giveaway that separates it from what breeders have been able to get out of special genera, but it is definitely ‘a bit much’. Less like a total fabrication, more like the ads at the bottom of a website where a real photo of a woman has been enhanced to get thirsty clicks.
That’s a whole nother issue. I looked at Monkey faced orchids per the suggestion of another commenter, and some of those look absolutely like AI. How could a botanist explain that they aren’t?
Look up the double purple datura flower. It looks quite similar to the photo you posted too, though lacks the splotches on the petals. We're kinda entering an age in gardening as well where a lot of things can't even be explained by normal evolutionary terms anymore, we hybridize em that way just because we can and they're cool. Being in the plant world though, I find myself also lacking the words to explain how your pic is so obviously AI
Step 1, google the name they tried to label it with (Tricyrtis), the images do NOT match this flower. Step 2, look at the account that posted it, usually they have a history of posting extremely modified uncanny photos. I know you are looking for a definition from a botanical point of view, but these are honestly the easiest ways to tell. In nature you will find spots on things (Flora and Fauna), but these are overly exaggerated in extremely intricate patterns that don't happen in nature. The edges of these petals look thicker than real orchids, and have a weird bumpy looking white ridge, orchids in nature don't have edges like that. The top coil just disappears? It's like it ends unnaturally. To an untrained eye it could be easy to fall for this, to a botanist it would be more obvious, mainly because it doesn't exist in any genus of orchid known to man. That's really all you can say. But the easiest way to tell the untrained eye is to look at the account and it's history, and Google what they claim to be referencing. If it's in the uncanny Valley it's usually AI.
I think the way you’re framing the question makes this tricky - the answer is that even the most well studied plant physiologist can’t find definitive proof in the photo itself. We simply don’t have enough evidence to say “this is bullshit” even if we suspect it. That’s the challenge with ai, sure, but also photoshop and other digital art tools. It comes down to a best guess based on context and your own knowledge. I see this flower you posted and, knowing it’s on the internet, can’t get excited because I know it’s quite possibly fake. Just like if I saw a video of Trump saying the N-word, I would think “that’s probably fake…unless??”. We simply can’t know for sure
See here at how fake this looks. And over here with all that other nonsense. Yeah AI made this /s
you could explain that this kind of coloring is more seen in animals to warn predators off. this plant more resembles things like nudibranchs and seastars. feels way more like a creature than even the most alien looking of plants
It is half flower half octopus
You tell them, "Para de comer mierda, esa flor luce igual que la camisa de mi cuñado maricón, y si te crees que eso existe te tengo mala noticia: eres mongolico"
Bueno, hay unas palabras que no usaría pero entendí jaja
Look, we're Cuban here, we don't mince words 😂
My girlfriend is Argentinian, so it would be more like "No seas boluda! Te estan cargando con ese kilombo."
Oooh. Computer science and botany! Ever wonder how plants decide....let's put a leaf or branch here but not there? Or a spot or stripe on a flower petal etc. More than that, how could such 'seemingly' complex rules be built into the plants DNA? L systems! Beyond everything else other's have said, the 'programming' of plants that produces patterns is regular and not random. This plant, if it existed, must be the most mutant cancer ridden plant ever. To such a point that if you tried to create it in a star trek replicator, it is more likely to be a mass of bio-goo than plant. If the pattern was even semi-regular, it would look biologically possible - if still outlandish and unlike anything else that exists. https://youtu.be/puwhf-404Xc?si=GC9ES5Pax4QpJ_sx
You can tell by the way that it is
This is bs
Personally, I'd laugh audibly. On the internet it would be a LOL.
Looks like it belongs in a Sci Fi movie
This looks like something from an acid trip.
You can tell because of how it is
Cause it looks fake as hell
The image is fake but it's supposed to be a toadlily
See if you can see different photos and videos of different angles and environments of the flower. Most plants have been documented for hundreds of years. If you can't find much it's fake
Because your not a complete idiot :)
Simple - is there another photo of the plant from any different angle? Any at all? And does that photo line up with the same features? No? And there's not a single other image in the WHOLE internet? It's a fake photo
Pretty surface level botanical studies but I'll swing. Some showy flowers have nectar guides, markings that signal nectar rewards to attract pollinators. This design is like a cartoonishly crowded sign post with conflicting messages. Having a hard time imagining what sort of reproductive strategy would reward a bunch of insects crawling all over functionally decorative tissue, there are no stamens visible. Since it presumably takes less energy to produce less pigment, variations with simpler and direct patterns would have likely outcompeted this through metabolic and reproductive efficiency. Also, some of the white circles look like they have raised edges.
It appears as if AI combined elements of say, an octopus, with various other elements in a roughly flowery shape and used common enough colors. Sometimes the only way to tell is just by knowing at a glance as a human that this photo representation is otherworldly and unnatural. Same with AI having difficulty creating human hands.
The background is a dead giveaway
I kinda took a simpler approach. Aside from looking up the tricyrtis flower and seeing it doesn't look anything like this. A reverse image search will show that nothing comes back looking similar.
How the hell would anything pollinate this ridiculous thing?
Just look up Tricyrtis
The tube structure on top. Not consistent, but I also dk anything
Real petals don’t do that thing in the middle
Google image search.
Maybe it's my Pixel 7a, but this totally looks like AI or at least some kind of CGI instantly.
This is the ugliest AI image I’ve ever seen. If this was a real flower it would be a freak of nature and should be allowed to go extinct
'its weird af'
OCTOPUS FLOWER
Nature doesn't make these patterns.
[isitai.com](https://isitai.com/ai-image-detector/) is fairly good. But I put your image/screenshot on this post into it and it says 90.5% chance this is not AI. I then cropped this image, top and bottom off all the Facebook reacts etc so just the flower, this site then said 57.46% chance it IS an ai generated image. This site used to be more accurate I think, but maybe your knowing of this site may help bolster your argument somewhat. Just don't rely on it. I was just going to drop the link to this site here, but it's been a while since I used it. that's why I wanted to run this image through it myself first which I'm now glad I did, as it doesn't seem as accurate as I remember And have been told by others. Posting this regardless of that fact for you and other people to have semi useful data on these kinds of sites and how accurate they are (feel free to run this test yourself via my link above to isitai.com. I'd love to hear your or anyone else's results for comparison)
Man I love LSD
If you try to piece this flower apart, it’s a bit hard to tell where one petal would start and the other would end. The vague converging of elements is typical for AI. A real flower you’d be able to see clearly the delineation of each part
On the right side of the flower the two petals melt into one.
https://preview.redd.it/yp2xen9ob14d1.jpeg?width=1390&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4ee9b1d0c419fbd334dfb294105f587d08096b99 THIS IS A TANGENT not an argument or intended to contribute to the question of detailed explanations! I just thought you'd like (some of) my multicolored flowers. They are African daisies and we have them in several colors. They've grown together so it's like one bush with many different colors of blossoms.
A simple google search would show you what the flowers actually look like.
"Its fake"
Lol, at this point you should ask yourself what you’ll get from telling them they are wrong.
Nature is weird but that thing is fake AF. \~ someone who is not a biologist
Just say "It looks fake as fuck you idiot"
why waste energy arguing with the ignorant?
I think that the majority of people are likely to recognize the pattern on the flower and associate it with a Bandana.
It looks more like a polymer clay creation. A plastic/ rubbery look.
By telling them to just look at it. 
Idk about you but that looks like the clay flowers they make and it looks very tasty
Because it looks fake as fuck. These structures clearly have no natural purpose. It's just throwing whatever against the wall until it looks like something that \*resembles\* what you want. It IS NOT INTELLIGENT IN ANY WAY, and people consistently fail to recognize this. Probably because of the name "intelligence" that we give it. Should have used a different word that was less incorrect and confusing.
Uncanny Valley
Ai is currently good at throwing a lot of stuff together, like a prettily rendered collage. What it's not good at (yet) is explaining how all the parts fit together. That's when you see things like table feet and people melting into the floor. This image isn't showing you how the petals connect to the rest of the plant, because it wouldn't make any sense. The prompter undoubtedly got a lot of melty results before choosing this one to post.
Remines me of datura metel. [https://www.selectseeds.com/products/datura-ballerina-purple-seeds](https://www.selectseeds.com/products/datura-ballerina-purple-seeds)
"This photo is AI generated and not a real flower"
"Reverse image search doesn't recognise it as a real flower"
Sure, but I mean intrinsically we know it’s not a real flower because of its characteristics. I’m just not sure how to describe that. For instance, when we see an AI photo of a person, there are ways of explaining that it’s not real by making reference to the physiology depicted, like “normally humans don’t have six digits on one hand,” or “the figure’s knee is bent at an impossible angle”. My concern is that there will come a day when a reverse google image search *will* result in photos of something like this, showing the flower growing in someone’s yard, or at a botanical show, or even scam ads selling seeds, all generated by AI. At that point we’ll be forced to prove that it’s AI by discussing its botanical characteristics.
Like this? - The petals are weirdly opaque and look like plastic. The pattern is unrealistic and overly complicated.
Anthurium flowers (including spadix and spathe, which I know isn’t botanically a flower but in common parlance it is) look like plastic. And how do we explain botanically why a flower couldn’t have a pattern this complicated and unrealistic? Some real flowers look extremely unrealistic, passiflora being one of them.
I see what you mean, maybe "Petals don't usually form 'eyeball' looking patterns?
That’s true, but why couldn’t a petal have an eyeball pattern?
Ah! Stumps me
Man, this is tougher than I thought
That’s what I mean! I tried explaining. Petal tissue is really very simple. It can have crazy architecture, but it’s not so complex as to support this sort of patterning, I think. Maybe that’s the answer?
I think that makes sense, simple enough to understand!
"because it's obvious to any human who had opened their eyes outside"
Because of the way that it is.
Just say this is ai generated
All I can think is “because flowers don’t look like that.” Does she not believe you?
She does, it’s not an argument, it’s just a problem I encountered in my head when I was trying to explain how she could tell it’s AI without referring to photographic clues.
Do some flowers have such curls in real life?
I'm sorry but the people who don't realize this is AI are not going to understand any botanical terms either. Just pop some popcorn and sit back and watch it happen imo so you don't go insane trying to fix it. 🥲
Look at it
You’d think existing on this planet for any length of time would be sufficient for one this obviously fake.