Step 1: I think the AI has gone nuts. I was creating an observation of a large pine tree in Riverside County, CA. I added my photos and let the AI suggest a pine species. It selected as “common/expected” 2 non-native species (with no RG observations in this area), a pine disease, and one native pine that has 7 RG observations in the county. There are at least 3 other similar pine tree contenders with many, many observations in the county that weren’t mentioned. That includes the species I was told was “the” big-coned pine tree in the area, the Jeffry Pine.
It’s the “common/expected nearby” business that threw me. Why are two non-natives with a handful of “needs ID” observations listed in that state?
I hate to seem negative, but I’m dismayed. Is there some hope that the model will be fixed soon so that suggestions will be useful again without having to look up all the species not expected nearby to see which ones to actually expect nearby?
I’m foolish enough to give it a try because I’m just an observing fool, But I’ve been cheerfully telling newcomers how great the ID suggestions are and how to validate them, but I don’t feel good about that now. Why would they even want to use an app with that sort of “feature?” If the things that ARE nearby aren’t LISTED as nearby, I think the users we most want to attract will flee for their lives (or sanity). Sniff.
I was just starting to like and use the app sometimes after the recent overhaul (thanks to you all)… But I can’t do that sort of fact checking in the app or even in the web site on my phone, so it’s much less useful to me now.
I read many of the threads mentioned here. My head hurts now. Darn it, why did my friend have to live near San Jacinto Mt, that hotbed of honeycomb madness…? Oh, well, I’m back now and will have to see whether my favorite organisms in Central Texas are still expected nearby. G’night.
Six days ago staff said (on the other topic linked above) they are investigating the issue and two days ago they reaffirmed that they are still looking into it (see comment two above your latest).
