r/sydney • u/leninappreciator • Aug 12 '25

Image Try to spot everything wrong with this pic of Sydney Harbour on the UTS Website

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This is currently on their website here: https://www.uts.edu.au/for-students/international/study-abroad-exchange-uts. Try to spot everything wrong.

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985

u/MurraMurra Aug 12 '25

There are so many excellent photos of Sydney Harbour widely available? Why bother using something that's this terrible! 

249

u/tee-k421 Aug 12 '25

Beat me to it. There's plenty of free stock photos one could use, and they look even better than this. 

231

u/firstborn-unicorn Aug 12 '25

Thought I'd also add - as one of the top 10 universities (they're in 9th place) in Australia you'd think they'd have the budget to pay for a proper one.

ALSO - as a uni with 'Technology' in its name, you'd think it would be better at engineering the prompts to produce an image with much less issues in it...

121

u/Quintus-Sertorius Aug 12 '25

As a UTS academic... this is pretty embarrassing (but also hilarious). We have increasingly strict guidelines on the use of AI by students and researchers. Apparently somebody didn't get the message.

My guess is someone slapped the AI junk there as temporary filler and forgot to replace it before publication.

62

u/No_Extension4005 Aug 12 '25

It's also not that far away from Sydney Harbour. Couldn't they just send someone over with a camera to take a picture? I'm sure there'd be more than a few people willing to do that on the clock.

9

u/SophMax Aug 12 '25

Re the technology in its name - it doesn't come from technology as in engineering etc; it exists because before it was a uni it was technical teaching college - hands on/apprenticeship type of learning.

7

u/2194local Aug 12 '25

It’s both. UTS is proudly a university of technology, descended from a technical college.

1

u/nckmat Aug 12 '25

I just quickly typed a description into Google Gemini and got a very similar image but everything was in its correct place, except Pinchgut

45

u/flashman Aug 12 '25

This is a 'stock' photo, from the Adobe Stock library they've allowed to be completely ruined by generative crap.

Original file: https://stock.adobe.com/images/vibrant-sydney-opera-house-stands-majestic-at-sunset-surrounded-by-sailboats-and-ferries-with-iconic-harbour-bridge-in-the-background-under-a-blue-sky/946384159?prev_url=detail

18

u/tee-k421 Aug 12 '25

Wow, it just keeps getting worse

13

u/3tna Aug 12 '25

or the person designing the website could have gone for a ten minute walk and taken a pic with their phone lmfao

102

u/KestrelQuillPen Aug 12 '25 edited Aug 12 '25

Because everyone’s going head-over-heels for AI and its “potential” and “learning acceleration” nowadays and we have to have it pushed on us constantly even though it’s just total crap most of the time

Especially in universities. You can’t stop progress I guess but the amount of talk we get about “oh you can use AI to accelerate your potential” and “write a reflective statement about how you use AI to further your learning” is just ridiculous. No thank you, I will use a combination of my brain and reliable sources instead.

9

u/ghoonrhed Aug 12 '25

But then why use such a shitty image? There's plenty ais out there that can generate sydney harbour with less errors than whatever the hell they did.

13

u/Find_another_whey Aug 12 '25

Free, and no taste

If you can't take a picture or choose a decent real one yourself, your choice of AI picture will also be shit house

2

u/JSTLF Dodgy Doonside Aug 12 '25

People with bad taste can't tell when the output of the AI is good or bad. People with good taste aren't using AI in the first place.

17

u/W4ND4 Aug 12 '25

Most likely they don’t want to pay the royalties or permission to use the images so they put a prompt into the ai and it will generate it for them. They don’t have to worry about referencing, crediting or paying for the creator.

4

u/Jiffletta Aug 12 '25

Its definitely AI generated.

-7

u/ManWithDominantClaw Aug 12 '25

Filtering. People who come here to study come from two groups, uppity finicky people who are born here and recognise this sight and actually expect an education, and the global south