Say hello to felis retrowavus, commonly known as the synthwave cat, one of the rarest species of felid on Earth.
Using the same technique GloFish employed to create bioluminescent neon fish for the pet market, scientists engineered felis retrowavus by extracting fluorescent proteins from jellyfish and inserting them into cat embryos, which incorporated the new proteins into their genome.
The result? A new species of cat that glows in fabulous colors like Tigerbrite Orange™, Electro Azure™, RadarGlo Green™, 1984 Pink™ and SithRed™!
Your brand new Neon Feline™ will run, jump and meow just like a regular cat, but unlike a plain old kitty, your Neon Feline™ will snuggle up with you at night and serve as your personal biological night light! Collect them all!
If that sounds like BS, that’s because it is.
Likewise, it should only take a second or two to realize the widely disseminated photo of a “snake cat” is a fake rendered by an AI.
The image has all the hallmarks of an AI generated image fail: Anatomical errors, fuzzy pixels where the AI struggled with the way light hits fur, a misshapen head and a nebulous, blurry background.
Although the media seems to be more obsessed with the snake cat hoax than people are (the snake cat image “mystified the internet,” the New York Post claims), after years of witnessing people take Onion stories seriously and confidently repeat misinformation online, I’m not really surprised when something like this makes the rounds.
The image was accompanied by a clever bit of writing claiming the cat isn’t well known because it’s native to the deep jungle of the Amazon, where scientists have difficulty tracking it. The text even offered a taxonomical name for the cryptid animal.
Enough people apparently fell for it that the staff at Snopes felt the need to debunk the image, even going as far as to check with a biologist who specializes in tropical fauna.
The original author of the snake cat post says he created the image and accompanying text to prove how easy it is for people to be fooled by AI-generated fakes. A noble goal if true, but I’m not sure everyone got the message.
In any case, the “snake cat” proves once again that AI, like all innovations, isn’t inherently good or bad. It’s what we do with the technology that counts.
Now can I interest anyone in a brand new Purple Velvet or Flaming Hot Cheetos SnuggleCat™?