AI Rewilding Images Are Sanitized and Misleading

When asked to visualize rewilded British landscapes, AI tools like ChatGPT and Gemini consistently produce similar, idealized scenes: golden meadows, gentle streams, deer, and ponies. Missing entirely are wolves, bears, decay, mess, and the genuine ecological chaos that real rewilding produces. Researchers from the University of Aberdeen found the images mirror the curated, drone-shot aesthetics of NGO promotional material. The problem runs deeper than aesthetics. AI can generate ecologically accurate rewilding imagery, but only when given highly specific expert instructions. For most users, the output reflects a sanitized, lowest-common-denominator vision of nature, reinforcing a narrow and misleading public understanding of what rewilding actually involves.