Agreed, Edward. When it was first publicly introduced sometime last year (at least, that's when it came to my attention), it was mostly about writing legal briefs or helping authors finish storylines and so forth. So, as seems the pattern with most novelties, it gets wiggled in front of people as a shiney new toy that will make lives better and faster; then, when it becomes too prevelant to put the genie back in the bottle, we start learning of the potential malevolence with which it can be applied.  Like most new inventions, that's the route it has been and will be taken.

There is AI in general and there is AI images. AI is general seems pretty unpleasant stuff and obviously the waiting dangers are a concern. How can we trust something without feeling to make decisions? The human element and imagination is vital. This is something sci-fi has been tackling for decades. Spock could find sympathy and empathy from his human side. Computers cannot be trusted. 

But even if we remove the threat what do we have. From Homer's Odyssey to Homer Simpson, from Shakespeare's Hamlet to Shakespeare's Sister, from Charles Dickens to  Dahl's Chickens (thanks Roald) what makes the words of any worth is the human element. Creativity. How can AI ever appreciate the nuances of love, loss, rage, jealousy? How can it create an original joke, or inspired metaphor? A computer may understand the structure of Iambic Pentameter but how could it ever capture the artistry and genius to create lines of feeling worth reading today let alone in 500 years? 

Even the worst newspaper hack writes with some level of humanity, the personality will come through. His/her upbringing, schooling, hates and dislikes, pain and happiness will seep into the work. An AI generated work may offer facts but those facts are stolen from other peoples ideas, thoughts, feelings, lies and nonsense and yet it serves the information with not ability to judge and filter in response to it's own emotions. The holocaust was wrong, but only because it is logically wrong and not because on reading about it AI feels hopeless, sickened and angry. 

The AI art is likewise devoid of feeling. I feel it can serve a purpose on a simple blogs illustrating a fantasy scenario where no real image is available. Such as an office meeting of fifty naked board members - and in doing so the image should be presented as fantasy, non-realistic and dream like. We would never wish to take art away from genuine artists but a 200 piece blog on ANW is not going to have a piece of real artwork commissioned for it. Personally this art work does nothing for me on a viewing level. I have been moved and inspired in art galleries, AI art work serve a purpose, like a pie chart, but doesn't hit you with any kind of emotion. And that is part of the unpleasantness of it, the creepiness of it, as it has been described, it does not have any humanity to it. It is like the art that Barbie and Ken would create for their home, and sadly also reflects Barbie and Ken style media perfection. I don't hate it, I don't like it, I feel nothing for it but see it as an accompanying tool/image  to add to help present words. 

It is the lack of reality that is part of the photograph issue. Along with Anna's thoughts above and other valid thoughts that there is no need to repeat. The photos are as unfeeling as the "drawings/watercolours but they look almost human, so instead they feel like some sort of waxwork horror show, or some sort of Frankenstein glamour shoot. It is like the local undertakers are posing corpses on beaches, undressing them and taking photos without the deceased approval. 

Can ANW outlaw AI completely, could we ever know if people used it anyway. People can say they wrote a blog from AI, or they painted a picture which was AI and could we ever be 100% sure either way. But the photos - do break the posting images of strangers rule - even if the strangers are not "real" they are photo real, and so are just as damaging as real ones to the average viewer, and just as concerning to naturists. 

Beyond that there is one other thought I would like to share tonight and that is ANW and naturism is all about real people. Honest, open, natural and genuine  people. We offer verification and ask people to not be genuine in their behaviour. How does fake imagery fit in with that? Naturism shouldn't be airbrushed, ANW shouldn't be about sharing made up naturist images, and our community should be about embracing the imperfections of our real bodies, and not allowing AI to put us to shame with it's selection of perfect bodies.   

The AI debate is bigger than ANW and maybe some of it is beyond our scope but when it comes to naturism we need to ensure it is presented positively and safely and AI images, particularly photo real ones seem to me to go against the principals of promoting the right use of ANW and the right understanding of naturism.

The way I see it (Rob) is that A.I. has a task to do, and it is very efficient in the way in which it does it, after all, it is a computer that runs on code, get the coding right and you have a useful tool, for that is what it is, a tool. 

 We have no issue, as we have stated with some of the images produced for Marc, we understood that it would be very difficult to be able to take such images with a camera, and we did actually like the very painting like images produced. We feel that when they are likened to paintings, they project a fantasy, or a desire to see something, and those painted images did exactly that. 

In regard to the Photographic images, once again, the A.I. did what was expected of it, which was create the image, so it performed its task, and that actually goes to the heart of this conversation. As Steve rightly points out, A.I. is a computer, it is not a human, and this is a very important point, because the computer acted like a computer and not a human.

A.I does not take into account human perception, and that is its downfall, a computer cannot percieve itself through the eyes of another, as all people do as they grow and mature. Computers run code, not emotion, which is why the A.I. simply achieved its goal by colouring the swim wear flesh coloured, it mattered not that there was outlines of the swim wear, or there was a gap very visibly seen in the area of the groin, where the swimwear had moved away from the skin. The computer had no concern that the flesh tones used did not match the sun tanned skin of the rest of the body, or that the nipples were the wrong colour and slightly off centre. 

To put it bluntly, it was asked for nudes, and took the shortest route possible to provide them, and it did exactly what it was asked, and achived its task in record time, and in that lies the problem. If an artist was asked to create such a picture with Photshop, because they are emotionally attached to their work, which the computer is not, they would spend a great deal of time creating the right image for the blog post. Because, the artist would have been aware it was for public display, and the perception of the work would be an important aspect of that, his emotional involvement would have led to a picture that looked perfect, and was of naked, not photoshoped dressed people. 

It is yet another example of how incapable A.I. truly is in its perception of humanity.

Thanks for the thoughts Rob, very sensible. As is often the case with naturism we are looking at a lifestyle that is grounded in our history. Not just the circa 150 years of naturism itself but also our ancient history. Humans have always had a relationship with causal non-sexual social nudity and naturism taps into that. It is part of our nature, part of being an animal, part of being real and natural, part of being genuine. It is part of rejecting modern trends and trappings, uniforms and fears, part of rejecting an ever growing abuse and misuse of the human body - an obsession with porn that has reached an all time high in recent years, thanks in part to the internet and thanks in part to society becoming more and more unnatural. 

AI is the ultimate in unnatural and yet also captures the reality of our current human dilemma. It is like a round up of the most common ideas and thoughts wrapped up in a neat little bundle and presented with a frightening accuracy, and yet a sad inaccuracy - as it misses the little nuances of understanding of life that most human have about their predicament. 

AI can be a useful tool, but so is the gun and so is the internet - and we all know that tools can be misused and at times - like porn or bullying or fraud on the internet or the need for a gun to find respect or the arms race the tool takes over and starts to guide us. Yes we can say no, but are we capable of it. Like a drug who or what is in control. If AI gives a result on how we think, it also gives us a result of what we should think, and as is human nature that will then dictate how we think and with each day the control of how we think will be dictated back to AI and then fed back to us until we are all thinking the same. So if that includes hating naturism that is what 99.9% will do. Even the AI produced information will be taken into consideration and the more it is used the more that information will effect the results. As AI becomes increasingly relied on we will no longer have information based on the way many people think, but instead have information based on an altered perception of how many people used to think that has been filtered down and tweaked by generations of AI interpretations and reinterpretations. A digital butterfly effect. 

Naturism that is all about nature and natural has to fit into the modern world and strike a balance between the ancient and the instinctive, and clothing and technology. We have to find a way of being natural about our bodies, knowing that the majority have grown with totally different ideas. It is like legalising topless equality. The law can give women the right to show their breasts but they know that modern man is not able to deal with that yet. How do we change that issue, maybe it is impossible because how do you rewind time? But if it is possible it will take some time. Naturism is stuck between the poles of the natural and the unnatural and somehow we have to realistically work with both. AI is possibly the least natural thing there is, and at first glance seems the very thing naturism should hate and ignore. Yet it is part of modern humanity and so like other aspect of our modern world we have to find a way of existing along side it. Like clothing it is here to stay - we just need to ensure that people understand that there are alternatives. Naturism has served as as escape from coverings, never a complete rejection. Naturism can work as an escape from technology, but it can never remove technology and take humanity back to the nature of their past. We are stuck taking every invention ever created into our future, we just have to make sure we do not lose what made us human in the first place, and naturism is a great link back to that and I hope it continues to do that for people for ever. My worry is is that AI is another tool that is going to make that much harder to maintain in the future. the distance back to nature is always becoming a longer journey and the faster we evolve the further the distance becomes.

Steve's last post is an excellent summation.  He is correct in his statement that AI is here to stay, just like many other "disruptive" technologies.  Many of the examples listed in all the posts are possible and indeed some may have occurred.  It is up to us as individuals to make our own decisions on technologies like this.

I saw Marc's revised Advent calendar this morning.  I have to admire his ability to use a tool like AI to produce images that are as lifelike as one or two of them.  The more stylized images to me evoke more of an extension of what can be done today with Photoshop.  Can we say that they are art, just an extension of changes similar to those when silver-based photography came on the scene to "challenge" painting or, more recently, when digital photography essentially killed silver-based photography?  

There is no putting the genie back into the bottle.  I think it's up to Steve and Anna, as stewards of ANW, and us as the ANW community at large to determine what we want to do or not do with AI.  Each one of us will have his or her own view on the merits or problems of AI and that perhaps is a good thing.