Artificial intelligence could spell the end for one of the world’s biggest mysteries – as experts fear that AI-generated images of the Loch Ness monster could soon be indistinguishable from genuine photographs.
Since The Inverness Courier first ran a story about the Loch Ness monster in 1933, there has been an obsession with the Scottish lake and what may be hidden inside.
Aldie Mackay, manager of the Drumnadrochit Hotel, said that she saw a “beast” in the loch on April 14, 1933, and since then there have been innumerable hoaxes, myriad theories and various scientific studies to try to find the unidentified leviathan of the loch.
Steve Feltham has been living in a van at Loch Ness for more than 30 years and is a full-time Nessie hunter.
He says that a major part of his work is to screen purported sightings of Nessie. Nine in 10, he says, are people who are convinced they have seen the mythical monster but are mistaken.
Five per cent are troublemakers coming to start another hoax, much like Marmaduke Wetherell did in 1933 when he used a hippopotamus ashtray to try to claim a newspaper reward for finding Nessie, and the other five per cent, Mr Feltham says, are unexplained events.
“That’s the interesting stuff. That’s the stuff I’m looking for. I treat it like a giant jigsaw puzzle,” Mr Feltham said.
But exposing the hoaxes, he says, is a crucial part of his role because there needs to be a chance that a photo of Nessie is real and people do not automatically discount it as fake, in order for the legend to persist.