*Well, first things first. Of course I use AI every day, but the sort that is part of any digital work flow, the mostly invisible type, the type that has always been creeping into everything we do on a computer and is only obvious if you have been paying attention. Here we are talking about overt, deliberate and invasive AI, AI that replaces the need for people like me.
“AI slop” is a term that I feel the desperate are clinging to as a justification of their organic way of existing, but the reality is, it will get better and better until it is almost “AInvisible”, is coming and fast.
I say almost?
No matter how good AI generation gets, it is always retrospective. We do not yet have a hint of the sci-fi level “future generation”, the level of AI that would be needed to replace authenticity, other wise known as time travel.
Authenticity is the very real need to be there, the real place with the real people doing the real thing in real time. The invested will accept no replacement.
AI is the enemy of authenticity, the Yin to it’s Yang. After an event has been recorded authentically it is liable for AI recruitment, but not before or even during (maybe a yet, on that last one).
I guess a merchandiser could “enhance” this as they need, but if I put up a genuine counterfeit, it would end me as a working photographer.
My remit is to capture authenticity. The onus is on me to be able to prove that when required or my role becomes pointless, deceitful even. Not much point in putting up an image that the people who were actually there would contest.
I will use more AI as I go, that is guaranteed as tools improve across the board, but I will not ever need or want to use generative AI, just the normal digital enhancement tools that do help me enhance my captured authenticity.
Where does this line blur? Time will tell, but for me if it looks better after some work, it still needs to look right, I guess the danger is in my own perceptions shifting. I guess I resisted 20+ years of photoshop manipulations, so this is just an adjustment of that bar.
There is some push back against AI and there always will be, because people want to stay relevant. The danger seems to be the creeping shift in habits, that in hind-sight may shock even the younger generations. I am reminded of often comical (sometimes not) predictions of semi-brain dead humanity hurtling into the future, leaving most of the heavy lifting to computers until it lets us down, but in our immediate future the real battle will be in the details.
I am forced to stay true to my way of working. Nothing can change, so nothing will. What is done with my files after the fact is another persons concern, but at the pointy end, only real, being real matters.
AI is used generally to exemplify an idea, but without the need to be accurate to any source. Some things are perfect in a way they can only be if authentic. “Kids in a field” might produce a similar image, but not this image.
The only other realm safe from AI in theory, but it may come down to output and speed, is art. Artists use what ever medium is at hand and the movement to regress into harder forms over more convenient ones is part in parcel of the artistic mantra of “process over results”. AI if anything, will simply add another “convenience for the masses to avoid” for many as the facsimile print is anathema to the painter.
Art is ideas realised in form, so the process is irrelevant is the idea is hijacked by a process.
Oh look, we are back to authenticity again.
The future is always a mystery, mystery fuels fear and anticipation equally, but people will always fight to stay relevant, often despite themselves.