The AI thread

[faberryman]

It will definitely impact how I look at photos. It has drained the pleasure of looking at many photos because I suspect they might be AI.

Why? Sounds like your mind is messing with you.

[Michael R]

I'm a lot more worried about my income than photography.

[faberryman]

If you are not paying attention to what is happening in the world of image making, you will be caught by surprise one day, and it will not be a pleasant surprise. I see no harm in drawing attention to the fact that the publishing of imagery is now complicated by the fact that it is increasingly more difficult to tell a genuine photograph from an artificially created image. I suspect I have given this matter much more "serious thought" than you ever will. That doesn't mean I have my "panties in a bunch". As I stated, this doesn't affect what I do in my own creative life, but it IS a subject that warrants examination.

Have you ever done the drive-thru at a fast food joint, driven up to the menu and speaker box, looked over the choices, ordered, say, a hamburger, picked up your order at the window, driven back around to the menu and speaker box, and compared the hamburger shown on the menu and the hamburger in your bag? AI in photography is just a variation on a theme that has been going on since Hippolyte Bayard debuted Self Portrait of a Drowned Man in 1839.

[Tobias Key]

As I understand it AI created work doesn't or can't have copyright, so it is going to have some serious limitations if you want to earn a living that way. As per usual it seems like an idea that will take the living from many thousands of people and put that money in the pockets of a very few.

[Serge S]

I think Ai will give people a greater appreciation of traditional silver based photography

[jp]

Here's an idea...
Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, etc.. will become root level encryption certificate issuing authorities. Every 1-3 years you will have to pay and re-enroll your digital camera with a fresh certificate. Every camera image can then verify as an authentic digital photograph made during the cert period. (not ai)
Adobe, and any nonexistent competitors can do likewise and you'll have to pay them anually as well to prove you edited the images their software makes and it will carry the data from your camera maker's cert into the jpeg or secure-jpeg metadata.

[Pieter]

Why? Sounds like your mind is messing with you.

No. It is that I can no longer have any faith that the image I am looking at is not an AI illustration.

[John Kasaian]

Here's what worries me.
Unscrupulous actors can use AI to bend imagery for their own end.

Health care institutions can make convincing AI valid arguments for otherwise unnecessary treatments, bilking Medicare among other unsavory outcomes.
How many offers for "free" covid test kits from a never ending variety of suppliers have you received lately? Yeah, there are bad actors in the health care biz.

What about at a race track? A photo finish could be legit---or it could be AI generated---it's already in digital format.
Racetracks are all run by ex-Eagle scouts, right?

Or political races influenced by AI generated proof of misdeeds? This swings both ways. Both Fang Fang and Stormy can certainly be AI'd into convincing liasons and who would be in a position to refute that?

More diabolical, what about photos admitted as evidence? If an entire department or DA's office was crooked, what would guarantee photos admitted as evidence were un-AI'd?
AI is already used to illustrate the physical movement of vehicles/suspects during an incident for juries, so officers of the court are well aware of the opportunities especially during high profile trials where political points are to be made.

What about World War Three? Manufacturing justification for a war when none exists has been part of History for centuries. Imagine the possibilities with AI? That is perhaps the scariest of all.

The issue I see is that in such cases, photography has long been in the service of providing reliable answers. With AI, the reliability part flies out the window.

[Pieter]

Have you ever done the drive-thru at a fast food joint, driven up to the menu and speaker box, looked over the choices, ordered, say, a hamburger, picked up your order at the window, driven back around to the menu and speaker box, and compared the hamburger shown on the menu and the hamburger in your bag? AI in photography is just a variation on a theme that has been going on since Hippolyte Bayard debuted Self Portrait of a Drowned Man in 1839.

You'll need to expand on your drive-through example. The image in the menu is an image of a real burger--although it could be an illustration, styled and retouched to perfection. The smashed, oozing object wrapped in paper you receive is still a burger made with the same ingredients as that perfect burger. AI doesn't necessarily reflect any real things or any reality at all.

[Pieter]

Here's an idea...
Nikon, Canon, Sony, Fuji, etc.. will become root level encryption certificate issuing authorities. Every 1-3 years you will have to pay and re-enroll your digital camera with a fresh certificate. Every camera image can then verify as an authentic digital photograph made during the cert period. (not ai)
Adobe, and any nonexistent competitors can do likewise and you'll have to pay them anually as well to prove you edited the images their software makes and it will carry the data from your camera maker's cert into the jpeg or secure-jpeg metadata.

Too difficult. What would stop an AI image from just picking up such certificates and inserting them into the images created? Better yet, AI software should have to embed a token or watermark indicating the image was created with AI.