Young Birder of the Year Program

The Young Birder of the Year Program is built for young birders between the ages of 10-18 to practice birding skills, connect with fellow young birders, and learn from experienced mentors. Our goal is for participants to learn and grow as birders, conservationists, artists, writers, and photographers. Considering the rapid growth of artificial intelligence (AI) tools and programs, our need for AI guidance has grown.

To begin, artificial intelligence is a very broad term that includes many different types of programs. Generative AI is one type, which produces images, text, or other content when prompted by users. Assisted intelligence is another type, which supports people with simple, supervised tasks, such as spellchecking documents. When it comes to the Young Birder of the Year Program, some AI-assisted tools might be appropriate to support learning, but generative AI should never replace a participant’s own ideas, creativity, observations, or original work.

On a practical level, our concerns with AI-generated content include: 

• Unfair evaluation of submissions. Mentors want to evaluate what young birders made, not what AI programs made.
• Mistakes or inaccuracies. Generative AI programs can “hallucinate” errors, such as generating a bird with inaccurate anatomy or producing a citation for a book that does not exist.
• Plagiarism. Generative AI programs can produce text or images that are clearly modeled on the work of real people, leading to concerns of copyright infringement.

On a more thoughtful level, we want participants in our program to experience the exhilarating fulfillment of discovering new things, developing new skills, and expressing themselves through their own effort and creativity. Although this program may have other outcomes – such as strengthening a college application or providing pathways to publication in Birding magazine –  we hope the primary outcome is each young birder’s progress and increased confidence in their own abilities.

To ensure a fair Young Birder of the Year Program, we have developed the following Artificial Intelligence Principles. All participants must acknowledge that they have read & understood the Principles. Questions and clarifications are always welcome, and can be directed to ybyp@aba.org.

 

Artificial Intelligence Principles

1. All submissions to the Young Birder of the Year Program should be the original work of the participants. AI-generated submissions will be disqualified. Disqualification means that the participant will not be eligible for either the Young Birder of the Year title or module-specific awards. However, the participant may still receive mentor feedback to support their future learning & growth.
2. AI tools or programs may only be used as background, supplementary tools that support the participant’s creation of original work. Use of AI as a supplementary tool must be disclosed with an AI Disclosure, which you can find at the end of this document.

Examples of acceptable uses:

• • • proofreading/spellchecking
    • transcription
    • brainstorming
    • locating resources

Examples of unacceptable uses:

• • • any editing more significant than proofreading/spellchecking
    • writing essays
    • creating artwork
    • generating photographs
    • creating species accounts
    • generating conservation plans

3. Participants who are unsure about their use of AI can ask the YBYP Coordinator for clarification, but before doing so, should ask themselves: “Can I do this without AI?” If the answer is “Yes,” do it without AI. We highly encourage getting help from family, classmates, teachers, fellow participants in the program, and other mentors. Informational resources can also be found through Birding magazine (and other publications), the ABA Identification Vault, Birds of the World, Google Scholar, at your local library, and beyond.
4. Participants who use any type of AI as a background, supplementary tool are responsible for the accuracy and originality of their submissions. Hallucinations/inaccuracies introduced by generative AI will reflect poorly on the submission, and plagiarized content will lead to disqualification. Any work done by any AI should always be double-checked.
5. All participants should keep a record of their work, such as outlines or rough drafts of essays, initial sketches of illustrations, or unedited photographs. In the event that a submission is flagged as potentially AI-generated, these records will be requested to prove that it was the participant’s own work.

 

Photography Module

AI-powered tools, or smart tools, are now built into most image processing programs. As described in the Photography Module, AI-powered tools that improve image quality without changing the actual content of the photograph (such as AI noise reduction) are permitted. AI tools that generate, replace, or invent image content are not.

Editing techniques that are accepted:

• Cropping
• Minor adjustments to color, white balance, saturation, contrast, sharpness, etc. The processed colors should still be recognizable as the colors from the original image, with one allowable exception: changing a color image into grayscale
• Moderate reduction of image noise, including with AI-powered “denoise” tools
• Healing or cloning that is limited to correcting sensor dust spots or other camera-generated artifacts, provided it does not alter the content of the original image 

Editing techniques that are not accepted:

• Significant color & lighting adjustments which produce colors that are vastly different from the original image (except for changing a color image into  grayscale)
• Removal of or addition of objects that were not present in the original image
• Use of generative AI or generative fill to create, replace, reconstruct, extend, or invent image content. This includes AI Remove/Eraser tools when they replace objects with AI-generated pixels, as well as AI Expand, Outpainting, Upscaling, or similar tools that generate new image content beyond the original photograph. 

 

AI Disclosure

Every submission must include an AI disclosure in the Acknowledgements section that describes if any AI tool or program was used, and how.

If no AI was used, the disclosure will read:

AI Disclosure: I did not use any AI tools or programs during creation of my submissions.

If any AI was used, the disclosure will include what tool was used, what task the tool did, and what steps the participant took to double-check the AI program’s work. The disclosure will follow this structure:

AI Disclosure: In my [module] submission, I used [insert name of AI tool] to [insert tasks]. I reviewed the work by [insert steps].

For example, one disclosure might read:

AI Disclosure: In my Writing submission, I used Grammarly to proofread my essays. I reviewed the work by asking my sister to help me with a second round of proofreading.

And another might read:

AI Disclosure: In my Conservation & Community Leadership submission, I used Sonix to transcribe my interviews. I reviewed the work by listening to the interviews, reading the generated transcripts at the same time, and correcting errors.

 

Acknowledgment

Upon entering the Young Birder of the Year Program, participants acknowledge that they have received, read, and understood these Artificial Intelligence Principles. Any questions can be directed to ybyp@aba.org.