Yes, and it’s a constant educational process to help users understand the limitations of the “Computer Vision” suggestions. In a nutshell,
- Not every species in iNaturalist is “known” by Computer Vision.
- Only species above a certain threshhold for number of Research Grade observations are included in the Computer Vision data set. (This biases its effectiveness toward areas of the world where iNaturalist is in greatest use, and toward more commonly observed species and groups).
- Computer Vision will always offer suggestions based on similarity, even if the actual species you have is not in its data set.
- Computer Vision is not (yet) geographically “aware” enough to exclude suggestions from different continents, much less from the wrong side of the same continent. This is being worked on though…
That said, it is amazingly effective for certain taxa and regions, and getting better with every observation we add and identify.
But it’s use should always include an independent reality-check and a grain of salt.