Recraft users like Lou Ettore are quietly demonstrating what thoughtful and responsible AI integration looks like in practice.
Lou lives on the Big Island of Hawaii near Kilauea, a volcano that has been erupting almost continuously for the past 40 years. He serves as Executive Manager and Youth Program Director for the Hawaiian Volcano Education and Resilience Institute (HVERI), where his AI-powered work focuses on disaster preparedness, youth education, and content creation.
As part of HVERI, Lou manages Hawai'i Tracker, Hawaii Island's largest Facebook group with over 170,000 members. During calm periods, it's a space where locals share Hawaii-based content. But when Kilauea has a new eriuption or other disasters threaten the community, the group becomes a critical information hub.
That's when problems can and do arise. Misinformation spreads quickly during crises, and fake disaster images of lava flows, downed power lines, and fires can cause real panic and poor decision-making in communities already under stress.
"People love to sell fear," says Lou.
Lou's solution involves using Recraft to generate photorealistic and geographic-specific disaster scenario image specifically for education. The images depict emergency situations such a downed power lines across roads, lava crossing streets where it doesn't belong, and fires in areas that would be geographically impossible.
These training images help his team of Facebook moderators learn to identify the subtle markers that distinguish real documentation from AI-generated misinformation.
The scale of this challenge is not trivial. During normal periods, the Facebook group receives around 200 new membership requests daily and 300 posts every three to six hours. When disasters strike, those numbers double or triple, and the pressure intensifies to quickly identify and remove false information.
Lou's moderators complete a three-hour certification course on media moderation and AI detection, and similar training is required for other hubs across the island.
The sophistication of Lou's approach comes down to his ability to write detailed prompts in Recraft. These prompts can stretch to 500 words, incorporating specific camera details, lighting conditions, and geographic elements unique to Hawaii.
"My custom GPT prompt generator understand Hawaii's unique geography and plant life — things like Hawaiian albizia trees, Norfolk pines, ironwood, and 'ohia with their distinctive blossoms. Since this is such a geographically specific place, having my prompting system pre-loaded with these local details means I can generate much more accurate images without having to explain every Hawaiian tree species each time."
This technical precision helps create training materials that match the quality of images his moderators will encounter in real emergency situations.
Beyond disaster preparedness, Lou has developed educational programs that use Recraft to connect students with Hawaiian culture. In a grant-funded pilot program, local Hawaii students work with mele (traditional Hawaiian chants) and create visual interpretations using AI. They incorporate photographs they've taken around the island with generated images that reflect the stories and spiritual elements of the chants.
"We're teaching the children how to use AI in a way that they can understand in their world culturally," says Lou.
Lou's work with high school students is another instance of Recraft's value in education. At a career day at Ka'u High School, he set up a large screen and laptop, then guided students using Recraft to create visual representations of their future aspirations and dream careers.
The results were detailed, immediate, and tangible. By the end of career day, Lou had helped create visual storyboards for 80 students' career dreams. Four students from that day became his interns, and the school is now working to integrate similar approaches into their curriculum.
Lou's work with Recraft is an uncommon yet meaningful example of using AI to educate, protect, and empower a small local community.
As someone who has generated around 15,000 to 20,000 images in the past year alone, he sees enormous potential ahead.
"Recraft allows me to really expand my creativity easily. It gives me the creativity to prompt and generate at unprecedented speed."
