Jen Desmarais

I was on Instagram the other day, as I am often (too often) and I decided to look at the Ottawa Public Library’s Stories that day. (Because libraries are awesome!) And this image was one of them.

I couldn’t put my finger on it, but this photo gave me the ick. I replied to the Story, but got an automatic reply that the library doesn’t monitor their social media. Fair enough. I decided to email the library itself. One day later, I got a reply on Instagram – they told me that they hadn’t made the image, but had been tagged in it by @curacaregiver. They are a service in Ottawa that offers live-in support for the elderly.

So you’d think they’d have plenty of people to hire for a photoshoot.

Instead, they chose to use Gen AI, and drag the library into it.

Not only that, but they tried to gaslight me! I didn’t get a screenshot because they deleted it too fast, but when I pointed out that there was a missing shelf, they tried to tell me that the shelf had been cropped out. Hence my second image with the red arrow pointing to the shelf.

I’m pretty proud of myself for recognizing that this was AI (the shelf only confirmed it in my mind) but I am still not quite sure what it is, exactly, that made me go, “Uncanny valley! Something’s wrong!” Can someone explain what tipped me off so I can learn to recognize it on purpose?

Libraries are awesome! Support your local library! And don’t make them look bad by having them reshare Gen AI art.