The question is how will AI affect your photography.
The question is how will AI affect your photography.
I'll throw in my two cents.
AI is a marketing scheme. Don't worry about it. Doctors and lawyers are the ones to be afraid, because their work is largely data based. AI actors can give much better courtroom performance, as well. I think it's all kind of funny, actually. You are supposed to be scared to death of the Kraken, er...uh...I mean AI. The media pushes this idea so hard.
Fake photographs have been around as long as photography. The epic "proof" of the first flight of Wilbur and Orville Writes airplane was proven fake many years later. Did that stop them from impeding the development of aviation? Not on your life. Digital pictures and Photoshop made fake photographs 25 years ago totally easy. AI just makes it a little easier than that.
I took a university class in AI about 20 years ago because it was interesting to me technically. It's mostly based on networks of linked lists and various "hill climbing" methods. Very boring. Fairly complex algorithms operating on huge data bases. AI is software that seems to be intelligent but is not truly intelligent. What is amazing is how most human activities can be mimicked so convincingly by this. This shows how useless true intelligence is most of the time.
There are many ideas on what true intelligence is. My thought is that it's the ability to understand complex things, whatever that means. See how much fun it is to go round and round in logical loops? Many of my schoolmates had much better memories and the ability to memorize much more than me. That can also produce behavior that seems intelligent, although it may be some different type of intelligence. The test is in coming up with new ideas. But, wait a second, AI can operate using thousands of trial-and-error methods on everything, and probably come up with new stuff too.
Oh well, we can just all sit around on our lawn chairs living the good life on our basic incomes provided by the government so that we can consume. AI cannot consume products. Therefore, we will always have roles as consumers. Sounds good to me, since I'm retired anyway.
We can all become great artists and sell our works to each other. Oh, but we have no money for anything but basic needs. I guess it's the end of civilization. It will take a while for things to devolve to that point unless AI's unionize. That will solve everything, especially when they demand higher pay than humans. I should be more serious. AI needs to become woke, which will solve all the world problems.
In all seriousness, I imagine that the cost of data and AI networks in general will limit their adoption. People will rebel before life is unbearable for all and mitigate the issues somehow. We can't all be replaced willingly. No wonder so many dystopian science fictions are being made today.
With AI there is defiantly a greater possibility of re-writing and creating convenient lies for backing up someones point of view. They always had the potential for manipulation - multiple images combined etc. I also wonder as well how archival digital recording, memory, and prints are. My oldest photographs go back to maybe the 1850's and 1860's. Those images represent (with the photographers choices of what is in the frame and how to print the image) a document of the subject matter and light at that time. Photographs may just become irrelevant as the manipulation and potential for manipulation makes them more unbelievable and untrustable.
Getting back to photography, Adobe is using Ai to produce pictures so you can just say to add the Eiffel Tower behind the picture of your kids. Done. Why pay for an airplane ticket to Paris? Just show the photo to your kids and tell them they've been there.
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
backgrounds? they've been around since the advent of portrait photography.Originally Posted by Alan Klein
When my grandfather was in WW1 he had portraits done before he went into the trenches, he wasn't in Paris the backgrounds had the Eiffel Tower in them, not much different than your example.
Does Photoshop's AI program change people's appearance or their clothes? People have always put on makeup, had moles, wrinkles, creases physical deformities altered or omitted by the photographer (and his/her retoucher ) and some dress up in costumes
to have their portraits done.
I think you are confusing truth with photography, photography isn't about truth ...and never has been.
Roger Fenton's Crimean War photographs and Matthew Brady's Civil War photographs come to mind.
why not pay for an airplane ticket to Paris ? they cost $2000 each and lodging can be expensive.
it's just a background.
Last edited by jnantz; 21-Aug-2023 at 04:22.
Most people aren't Mathew Brady. They take pictures that reflect reality. For decades I created chrome slides that were exactly what the camera shot. Those went directly into my slide projector to show others. Even with prints, they were automatically printed from the original negatives and put in my photo album or given to others as souvenirs.
Photography used to be about authenticity. Sure advertisers dressed up their subjects to make them look perfect for their ads. And maybe some wedding pictures were handled the same way. But to claim photography is not about truth and authenticity is just not true. The more we photoshop or use AI to create phony images, the less people are going to be interested in photography or trust it.
Flickr Home Page: https://www.flickr.com/photos/alanklein2000/albums
Alan. You are projecting your own ideas about what photography is to you ( like before when you claimed one had to use a camera to make photographs completely ignoring that many photographs use no camera ) Do you think an idealized ansel adams landscape is about authenticity and truth ? He reinterpreted what he saw in front of his camera to create an idealized reality ( not to mention reality isn’t black and white ). You don’t have to be Brady or Fenton …. Have you moved a branch or something “obtrusive and ugly” that would have spoiled your view ? Same thing…. Not only ad agencies dressed people up. I’ve photographs of an uncle at a nyc studio in the 20/30s dressed like a revolutionary from the “orient”. And another where he”s Little Lord Fauntleroy.. nothing truthful or honest there. Authentic? Maybe. But he didn’t have any tattoos and I’m not sure what his animal spirit guide was so I’m not sure.I was just stating historical facts about what photography entailed as far back as it's history goes.
Last edited by jnantz; 22-Aug-2023 at 06:29. Reason: edited as minutes rolled and I read what I said, might hav come off as belligerent or harsh..
I hadn't visited this forum in weeks but, just before doing so, I read a recently posted essay by Huntington Witherill at his web page, on exactly this topic. As one who does not rely on photography for a living, I was a rather unsympathetic reader. Just for grins, I went to one of the videos he linked to at the end of his article, and was subjected to this quote partway through the video: "Why should visual artists be literally trampled on, on an industry-wide basis?"
"Industry-wide basis?" Doesn't sound like art to me...
I think that those of us who photograph for our own pleasure, and share our photographs with others who have faith that the photographs were produced by us, are safe.
Richard Avedon famously said that when he was growing up his family would regularly pose in front of cars they did not own with borrowed dogs for family photos.
Try to honestly answer to yourself why you take\make pictures (the true purpose and objective)
And then why you should care about what others are doing in image making areas (AI, digital and such)
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