I see a fair amount of AI created content. I further think on this, AI is getting better and better. I believe that in the next few years we will see a tremendous influx of AI generated imagery that one cannot tell if produced by a camera or not. A content creator in the near future, as they can now, will only have to sit at their computer, type in image concept ideas, and in moments have a plethora of variations on that idea/concept. Cameras will no longer be required. Movies will might eventually be all AI. No actors required. Only actor models whose movements and faces will generate those characters in movies scenes.
Of course there will be creatives who will react to this as we have been seeing the resurgence of film/analogue photography in the last few years.
What are your thoughts on this??
Keith – this has already more or less arrived. I’ve played with Dall.e 2 from the open AI project and its scary (although people’s faces are not quite photorealistic yet). I’m having a hard time imagining what this will do to photography – I think from a commercial perspective it will mostly go to AI; there will also be a lot of “fine art” created using AI and there will continue to be a niche of “old school” lens-based photography, just as there are people still using film, listening to vinyl and painting.
I didn’t know you work for a photo stock agency. I don’t understand the business model very well, except that people submit images which get licensed by the agency for relatively high prices. When the images are original work created by the people submitting them, it seems like a good service. When the images are historical, created by others long ago, it doesn’t seem entirely right to profit off them. I suppose most of them never get sold/licensed, so there isn’t much profit involved.
As far as AI goes, I know even less about that. But people have been fretting about photos being doctored since the earliest days of photography. Humans are pretty good at distinguishing fakes. It’s sort of encoded in our DNA. Time will tell, of course. Maybe machines will outsmart us in the end.
Unfortunately, I still have to work. I have a young son and my wife is a freelance. Family health insurance comes through my job. Gone are the days where images are licensed for high prices. Majority of images sold are royalty free, no license unless a client will pay for that. The industry has changed tremendously in the last 20 years. The advent of digital has allowed everyone and anyone to be a photographer. The technical photo knowledge that was required with film and darkroom work is not the case with digital. Most people set their cameras to auto and shoot jpegs. Those who want, require, or desire more creativity will shoot RAW and “develop” their images accordingly. I still develop my digital images individually in Photoshop as I would have if I was using a darkroom. Set it and forget it does not work for me. For myself, it is not just about seeing the world, but how I feel about it. A simple jpeg produced by a camera just cannot do that …. for me.
In the foreseeable future, I can see a time where cameras will not be required.
It’s really a wonderful tool if you use it well