Reduce lighting during migration

[Diana F.]

Also at the Birders Meeting yesterday, Gino Ellison presented this information of this AI tool that will write a letter for you to send to your city officials with information on how to reduce street lighting during migration. Night lighting disrupts and disorients birds during migration. I have attached the slide here. It is very easy to do.

Thanks

Diana Fruguglietti 

Woburn

[Toshia McCabe]

Hi Dianna,

Huge thanks to you and Gino for encouraging people to speak out for birds and wildlife! In these times, we need people to do that more than ever. I feel so deeply about it that I'm compelled to respond to your message. I hope you understand that this comes from a sense of concern and caring.

It looks like this organization has an AI for determining minimum useful lighting levels on streets at night, and they somehow integrate metrics from birdcast. That's pretty cool! 

However, I'd be extremely careful when using an AI to write letters for any legislative matter regardless of subject. I appreciate Gino encouraging people to speak up for wildlife, but using AI in this way can work against your cause in at least a few ways:

1. AI detection software exists. I don't know if lawmakers are using it yet, but I don't think it would be a stretch to envision why they might want to use it when receiving emails from constituents.

2. AI hallucinates. You definitely don't want your letter to contain false statements. False statements reflect badly on you. It might convince you to believe falsehoods, and it might discredit your letter. Even an AI that's been trained on environmental issues (presumably like the one Gino is advocating for) can hallucinate or mix facts up. AI has not come far enough for us to trust everything it says. It's easier and better to gather the facts yourself than to let an AI spew out content and have to fact check it.

3. It's far better to write your thoughts in your own words for many reasons. You learn more about the issue when you do your own research and think deeply about why the issue matters to you. Also, if anyone questions what you wrote, you're far more equipped to provide rationale for the content than if an AI wrote it.

4. If you don't have time to author a letter yourself, organizations like Mass Audubon, National Audubon, and the ABC regularly host campaigns where you can just fill in a form and send a boilerplate letter to your lawmaker. While a personal letter is far better, at least a boilerplate letter from a trusted org has been vetted.

Sincerely,

Toshia

[Diana F.]

Hi Toshia 

I will let Gino respond to this as he has done the research. His email is tbm...@outlook.com if anyone wants to reach out to him directly.

Thanks

Diana

--
Group home page:
https://menotomybirdclub.com/
---
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Arlington Birds" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to arlingtonbird...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/arlingtonbirds/ec169f9a-cb36-4f12-86ba-196c35b17d44n%40googlegroups.com.