John Bridges preferred title for this article was “AI can shove its “photography” up its own arse.” but we asked for an alternative that was toned down a little bit. Over to John for his opinion on Generative AI “photography”…
AI Photography? More like AI codswallop copyright-infringement, gaslighting its users into thinking they’re “creatives” – ‘oooh look at you, you’re so creative’. No, you’re not. Grow up, and do some real work for once in your life you lazy dullard.
AI is the shortcut used by people who don’t want to spend time developing real talent, people who think everything should be instant, food, drinks, cars, delivery, and people who are most likely to complain when a McDonald’s order comes in 5 minutes later rather than in 1 minute, ignoring the fact that there are real people behind McDonald’s making and delivering the food. (People who also want to “save the world”, but won’t walk to the local shop to buy something, when Amazon can deliver it straight to their door, and then later complain that there are no shops to buy things from locally.)
This is like “generative” AI, which is cunningly named “generative” when it is anything but generative. It produces results but doesn’t want to tell you WHERE the information came from in the first place, they copy images from a massive library of PHOTOGRAPHER’s photos, but because they’ve ripped off so many photographers it would be impossible to unpick who took what and where, and that’s the WAY they want it to be.
Generative AI “photography” is pretending that it’s generated images, and that you’re the creative person for thinking up such an amazing idea as having lightning coming from the sky, and a dinosaur chasing you when you’re on a moped. BUT it’s built on the back of people who actually put in the hard work making this type of image in the first place, and they are getting paid NOTHING for it.
If you’re a digital editor, or a digital artist, great, master your skills and carry on, but if you’re a photographer, then using generative AI is PRETENDING to be a photographer. This isn’t just about photographers though, this is about illustrators, designers, artists, video producers, and more, and it’s about replacing people with “AI”.
Just think how hard it would ACTUALLY be to produce an image like this in real life, it would take money, effort, and bags of time and talent. AI lets you shortcut this process entirely, and it’s something that you shouldn’t be proud of, unless you buy into the “creative” marketing (deception) that these companies are selling.
Going back to the person who spent the time and money creating the work: imagine how much time, effort, training, and money they’ve spent on the equipment needed, the camera, the lenses, the computers, the editing software etc. It could easily add up to thousands and thousands of pounds over the years.
Now think about stealing it, simply taking their photos and passing them off as your own. You wouldn’t do this, would you? But, this is almost exactly what generative AI is doing, but packaging it in a way that pretends it’s fine.
And the marketing firms at the big companies are telling you THIS IS FINE. If you’re not familiar with the meme, it’s worth look at the full image.
The views expressed in this column are not necessarily those of Amateur Photographer magazine or Kelsey Media Limited. If you have an opinion you’d like to share on this topic, or any other photography related subject, email: ap.ed@kelsey.co.uk
