AI Generated Content Is Now Everywhere You Look

An Unexpected Discovery in the Woods

While on a walk through the secluded Berkeley woods this week, I happened upon an AI-generated image in the wild. I caught sight of a poster for a local park event, which featured a vibrant and cartoony visual filled with color and motion, showing smiling kids and animals on an elaborate carousel.

My first thought was, “That looks a lot like AI!” I initially brushed it off, as the middle of the woods seemed an unlikely place to find an AI illustration.

The Telltale Signs and Growing Trend

However, a closer examination of the poster confirmed my suspicion. The top of the carousel in the image was decorated with the kind of jumbled, vaguely Cyrillic-looking nonsense text that AI image generators are known for creating.

Detail view of garbled elements of AI image on event sign. Photo by the author.

It was clear that the poster's creators had used a tool like ChatGPT or a similar service to produce the artwork. This is a pattern I am encountering more and more frequently. From the websites of local restaurants to children's lesson plans and advertisements for neighborhood organizations, AI-generated content is steadily invading the real world.