inaturalist•org Update on June 11, 2025 9:15pm EDT “We are not giving Google special access to your iNat data, and we have no obligation to use Google's infrastructure…If the demo… is not helpful, compromises data quality, has outsized environmental impacts, or is … too flawed, we will not keep it.” - ThreadSky

frwildflowers.bsky.social • 5 days ago

inaturalist•org
Update on June 11, 2025 9:15pm EDT
“We are not giving Google special access to your iNat data, and we have no obligation to use Google's infrastructure…If the demo… is not helpful, compromises data quality, has outsized environmental impacts, or is … too flawed, we will not keep it.”

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Comments

mariannedenton.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thanks for this update

frwildflowers.bsky.social•5 days ago

👍🙏

dynamoterror.bsky.social•5 days ago

Very reassuring to see.

frwildflowers.bsky.social•5 days ago

It’s a good first step, I await the following ones.

spleen9000.bsky.social•4 days ago

google has shown itself to be an unethical and untrustworthy company, so even beyond my hesitancies around generative AI, this seems like a bad move.

refinedplat.bsky.social•4 days ago

Frankly I feel like the loss of user confidence in the project is a bigger loss than any benefits that could possibly come from even making a flimsy demo for grant money that immediately gets junked.
There's better use of their time and ours than this "demo" would consume.

retiredrph.bsky.social•4 days ago

Something’ mighty unnatural about giving a bot developed by people who couldn’t ID a robin or a Monarch, control of a naturalist website.

miscelena.bsky.social•4 days ago

This only proves they don't understand how to train an AI. There's no way they're going to be able to train it without allowing it to see our data. This is either ignorant or disingenuous or both.

ponyco.bsky.social•5 days ago

🙄🤬. It will have environmental impact. Duh.

heyrhododendron.bsky.social•5 days ago

Thank you for posting this, it makes me more worried to read “the courts will decide”, “the community is going to be involved”, then why no discussions before doing this? nothing I read here makes me feel like they understand the issues that concern me about this “grant”/“advisement” with Google

deepharrison.com•5 days ago

Thanks for the update, and keeping an eye on them

earthlingcards.bsky.social•5 days ago

Not giving google ai *special* access to our data. Meaning it's already been given access to it all?

leramiles.bsky.social•5 days ago

I imagine it means what it says. Much of the data can be freely downloaded either from the platform or via GBIF, so everyone already has access to it. Then the end user has to abide by the licensing restrictions. Guess that’s what the reference to court cases on AI training is about.

earthlingcards.bsky.social•5 days ago

And yet, the words are carefully chosen, and deliberately vague euphemisms. Excuse my concern, I have loudly promoted inat at every chance, so I am extra critical of anything that suggests something dodgy is going on. Here's to you being right!

franzanth.bsky.social•5 days ago

thanks for the update!

kartoffelnn.bsky.social•5 days ago

If the program doesn't have special access to user provided data then what's the point?

earthlingcards.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yea this bit seems carefully worded to avoid saying something that's gonna outrage. Copywrite protection from ai is for the courts to decide?

telesonixseeker.bsky.social•5 days ago

Yeah, no. Especially with location. Need to share and journal in OG ways again. Meet with your community

kartoffelnn.bsky.social•5 days ago

Exactly. I don't understand why Google would pay millions of dollars for the same access to user data that any other user has.

cephalopodsdaily.bsky.social•5 days ago

Google isn't paying for access. They are paying for good PR. That's why they are giving out these grants, so they can say "look at these great organizations we are helping!" and "look at what GenAI can do!" These grants are to help Google look good.

spleen9000.bsky.social•4 days ago

honestly I think it's more sinister than that. it seems like they're trying to integrate their own AI service into as many things as possible and make as many people as possible reliant on it, so that down the line when they start charging to keep using it, it will be harder to opt out.

frwildflowers.bsky.social•4 days ago

This is my current read as well.

frwildflowers.bsky.social•5 days ago

https://bsky.app/profile/inaturalist.bsky.social/post/3lrex7aajb22b

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