I think AI art is neat and fun to play around with in what can create but what I don't like is scrolling through a timeline to see some majestic fall colors photo and all the naive people commenting on it like it was taken by a photographer.
Learning and getting good at photography takes years of learning, exploration, and refining your skills to take great photos. AI photography is hollow as it takes no learning, trial and error, and exploration. Taking 20 seconds to write down a prompt and get the perfect photo isn’t rewarding whatsoever and has no soul behind it.
Not being a full time professional photographer, the impact on the rest of us is to a degree, insignificant. But most would agree and support your concerns outlined in the video. Having said that, at the same time let’s not lose sight of the joy of photography. The travel, the hiking, the experience, being in the moment, the satisfaction of sharing your experience with others, etc. Many of us do photography for the mental and physical stimulation in retirement. Appreciate your video and sentiment/concern about AI.
Look at Boston Dynamics, Elon's robots and You will see hordes of them - COMMERCIAL "assistants" sent by "users" to take another picture or video - anywhere. So You or your kids will be in front of screens commanding, steering and nothing else - to final clicking "command to execute photo". That's the future - drones, assistants walking, climbing - instead of You. That's matter of $$ for promotion, big gamers as Elon are just now hungry another 0000 on their accounts.
@@cristibaluta I think you missed the point Kayahdog was making. Personally, I'm really only concerned about the pictures I take. In advertising I assume the photo is representative and not "factual". News photos also cannot be trusted. Unless I took it, I have doubts. I waste no time worrying about how authentic something I see on the internet is. But perhaps I've missed the point?
Hello Simon. Very interesting contribution and good tips. I’m not earning money with photography, therefore I’m not affected in this particular context… but what’s hitting the photo branch now has rolled over my line of business already: I’m a translator! I also thought that AI would take over after my time, but 3 or 4 years were enough. Studying languages and culture, reading, communicating, acquiring knowledge in a wide variety of fields, from science to economics and from law to literature, working on mastering different writing styles - marketing, journalistic, legal, scientific… only to be replaced by AI, that’s frustrating. The AI models used today were also trained over years with the texts of professional translators, many of them digging their own grave by giving away their work in exchange for free software. Funnily, I know several photographers here in Switzerland complaining about AI in advertising photography… who translated their website with DeepL. The expression „What goes around comes around“ proves very accurate. Many people embrace AI until they are directly concerned. Only then will they understand the full ramifications. For now, both in languages and in photography, there are luckily people ready to pay for the uniqueness of what they get! Bonne continuation!
Simon, you are by far one of the best TH-cam photographers out there. I know TH-cam is just one of your avenues of experience, but it has helped novice photographers like me immensely. Getting better quality family photos. Thanks.
This has been concerning me for awhile now, thanks Simon for taking the time to address it. I am very unsure about what this is going to bring in the future, I think its going to be more bad than good.
@@simon_dentremont At some stage before you can continue to do that you will have to comply to the globalist power structure. Make no mistake. You WILL have to comply . . . . . . . . . . . . with Satan!
As a retired senior & a hobby photographer I have the option of not posting my photographs on social media ( & I don't) I do it for myself & challenge myself to have each outing better than my previous one. I haven't aced the theory of photography, so it's still a learning curve. As I sit here some evenings with my adult beverage and go through my library to try & cull the herd so to speak, I find that I'm culling less & less photos. I must have learned something along the way.......
I see AI like social media. Had the potential to be used in such an amazing way....but instead it's doing significantly more harm than good. As a hobby I think photography will be safe. As a career, especially for people trying to make a name for themselves now? I feel things are bleak....and the sad thing is that there are many more industries/careers that will be affected far greater.
100% agree with the first line. I think the impact on professionals will depend on the genre. I don't think we are anywhere near a point where people just want to plug words into an AI prompt for their wedding photos, graduation, newborns, etc. Plenty of people that aren't photographers are just as sick of AI as we are so that's a positive. I can certainly see it destroying something like fashion photography where a business wants a cheap, instant result with AI. If AI gets good enough that they can't tell a difference, why would they pay big bucks for a photographer and a slow turnaround when a few words in a box gives the same result? Choose wisely if you want to make a career out of photography. TLDR: AI is trash.
@ko300zx the problem is mainly for professionals I fear. A wedding is an example where people can take pictures, and then improve the picture via AI, so a potential blessing for amateurs, not for professionals. I hope I'm wrong.
@@pleclere Being a good wedding photographer is about far more than being able to post process a few images. They're trusted to capture the event and all of the important moments. Amateurs are not taking that away because they can fix a few bad images with AI. And both a professional and amateur can use AI to fix images. Fixing things with AI is not a problem for anyone. It's creating something out of nothing that will take away from professionals. Creating a product photoshoot or fashion shoot using nothing but AI is possible. That is something that was previously done by professionals. Those are the people that will hurt. And I don't think I know anyone that wants their wedding photos to be an AI generated creation that never actually happened. That's not a real concern as far as I'm aware.
Thanks for another great video message, Simon! Thank you! I walked out one morning to see if I could get a shot of the whale, but it appears the tide took it away and I kick myself for not taking the time to get a shot of the tree… I live so close to both sites… perhaps that’s the subject of another video… don’t wait until “someday” to get that shot for it may not be there forever! Cheers!
I’m a back end operations type of person and will always value an original image that is a combination of timing, location and exploring capabilities of the hardware. I appreciate that you sat with a thermos of coffee after hiking three miles at O’dark thirty, waiting for the perfect lighting moment or capturing elusive wildlife in a memorable pose. A photo is layers of stories.
Thank you Simon for a realistic and adult discussion on artificial intelligence and photography. I am so tired of seeing images being posted on social media that one can immediately tell they are computer generated and the person posting the image tries to make you think it's a real photo. One detail that many of these "fake" images possess is that the lighting (shadows and highlights) are not consistent with real world conditions. However better software will make this more difficult to detect.
I think you have touched on some of the most salient points, regarding AI, with this video. YT kept showing me your thumbnail image for this video but my brain said it was an AI image so I ignored it. After two days I finally checked the tagline. LOL. Thanks for this Simon. Perhaps camera companies will help us. I think it's in their best interest as well as ours. Then again, they could have added safety features to help us deal with the issue of gear theft as well. Then again there is nothing better than taking personal responsibility. Cheers.
I love the idea of a story card, I collect pottery and keep an image of each piece, the person who made it and date. I often save their statements as it includes their personal reason for their art. It fits their pieces so well!
Sorry but I see it every week on flea markets in Europe - beloved medals, photo albums, cards, wwII awards of bravery(!!!) belonging to old family members - sometimes picked up from trash, mud by unknown people because beloved grandchildren threw away everything left by their passed away grandpas. In Europe it's typical - young remove everything what memorizes their elders. That means - all You will left will be brutally destroyed - by Your family or unknown new owners of Your home.
As for my own photos ,I like to keep them honest with the lest amount of post production but the noise reduction AI has going for it is very useful. Microsoft's Co-Pilot is at it's heart is spyware I can do without it and will either remove or disable. A thought provoking video ,thanks!
Noise reduction, removing unwanted items or distractions and I admit increasing the size of the canvas therefore saving a flying bird etc these I regularly use and love however some Ai generated pictures are just annoying 🤷🏼♂️
9:06 opt-out option is no good. For such sensitive things opt-in is the only acceptable option. Also do we really believe that Microsoft will obey your settings anyways?
Thank You "Grey Owl Master" for another enlightening video. Please keep going because we need a light in the darkness. By the way - I appreciate first Grey Owl's books. Best wishes from Poland for You and All You family and friends.
Hi Simon: I am lucky with respect to my photography, in that for me is a hobby. I know what i created with my camera and my time and hart. I don't have to cell my work for a living. I just share my work with my family and friends and use photography as way to get away from the world for a while. AI while it does trouble me in some respects, I know I still get great pleasure from the work I do and share.
Excellent content. At the end of the day, everything is about value, and how you add it to your photography work. Is not the image itself, as the mere compound of pixels and colors, is about what lies behind the image, what it means for you and for the spectator.
The unbridled use of AI, and all the fake crap distributed on the internet makes me think of the movie Total Recall. In a few years we won’t be able to tell whats real and what isn’t.
Some very good points made. I have found that people are more likely to purchase a copy of a print if they know the story behind it. I have found that giving my prints a title really helps with a potential customer's interest in the print.
We deal with this a lot in sports photography. Lots of people are using the AI generative fill or object removal to take out imperfections (or add additional space) to their images. While the AI can help a lot of creatives generate the images needed for graphics, we still need photographers to document and freeze moments of games.
I love your approach of "take photos about things, not just of things". In my photography studies days, we called it "photo journalistic approach". on a preventative note: The pocketbook is best place to make an impact. A consortium of artists banding together and filling lawsuits with an extraordinarily high dollar amount, with the intent to, shoot a round across the bow if you will, might create enough of a deterrent to future violators. Getty's lawsuit might be a step in the right direction, but why only $150k per image? why not $10mil per image? Unreasonable perhaps? Who says?
I think you nailed it by telling a story with your photos, I can say I was afraid of "digital" photography because of PhotoShop and how photos were manipulated when it first came out, but I learned to embrace it. I feel in time, we can learn to use and embrace AI, too, as long as they (AI) play fair and pay for our images.
Putting more storytelling into my photos, specifically the ones I post to social media, is definitely something I should work on. I've always kept my descriptions short on the belief that the photos should speak for themselves, but when the bots are being more expressive than me, maybe it's time to change things up so that I stand out as a human being more, one that other human beings might be interested in. Thanks for your tips!
Go Simon! Your videos are always educational and inspiring. AI has been long in the making if you look at our society's attraction to technology, the hyper-visual in movies and commercials, our ongoing fascination with perfection and intensity. A huge issue that does not often come up, however, is the immense energy required to run AI programs and the destruction to our planet to procure said energy. Google is building a new nuclear plant just to run their own AI projects. Microsoft is rebooting Three Mile Island, famed for its near meltdown in 1979. This should give us all pause.
By always taking pics as you encourage, I was noticed at a hotel. The manager asked to see some of my photos on my camera which I did tell her was raw. She was so excited! I was then offered a job doing a hotels photography and postcards by her while on vacation. Getting details dialed in by tomorrow.
@@simon_dentremont Thank you so much and I credit you for all the wonderful teaching you did. I have learned so much! You also are so encouraging to all of us to put ourselves out there. I am a bit shy about my photography and now I am much more self assured.
My sentiment (almost) exactly. Storytelling as the essence of photography is the key here. I believe there will always be a market for the craftsmanship of real human beings although it will shrink. The most popular photographers (and storytellers) will be golden, though.
I think that people will start to appreciate real photography more. To quote Ed Harris's character in Kodachrome, "No matter how good something looks, it doesn't beat the real thing"
"About things, not of things" is a beautiful way to capture it. We have souls, we have perspective, we can give things meaning. AI can only replicate. It will never be able to convey an original human experience, or share an emotion, or appreciate the magic that a good photograph (of reality) can capture. Take, for example, that famous National Geo cover you showed. The true image - her eyes - are captivating and austere. In her you can see strength... apprehension... survival. Her eyes tell the whole story of a girl living in Afghanistan, for which 1000 words would never capture. OTOH, the AI replica of that image is honestly one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. The only thing it conveys is the uncanny.
Simon, all great points. I fear for the future of those who make a living from photography. I've been with Squarespace for several years now but have never used their Ai function... I will try that out. As always thank you for this. I still look forward to meeting you some day. Cheers from Texas.
Yeah, there's the downside - much of the stuff you mentioned. But I believe the end result will be that real photos by real photographers will become more in demand. AI can fake a photo, but it can't capture a moment because it doesn't know what a moment is. The moment is too subjective for AI to ever know what it is, so it could never create it (and sometimes that capture of a moment is pure accident - I doubt any AI would ever be able to learn what a 'moment' is or how to create it by accident). Nah, I'm not worried. This is just like when e-readers came out. Everyone said it would kill books. It won a few battles but in the end books won the war.
Wer vertraut denn noch welchem Fotografen? Wer auf einem hart umkämpften Markt noch ein bisschen Geld verdienen muss, legt irgendwann seine letzten Prinzipien zur Seite.
Nice summary of a topic, as usual. Photography for yourself and trusted friends who will believe you should stick around and still be a hobby. Business uses are in danger, as you say. Also contests, where some people will cheat. Social media cheating will be rampant, but I think it's mostly rubbish now and avoid it anyway. In the end, as usual, the real problem is people. It's what we do with the tools that determines good or bad. I like your hopeful ideas. I hope some of them work.
Hey Simon! Are you planning on shooting more videos that show you out in the field working your magic? Don't get me wrong, your content is so helpfuland has been one of the major inspirations for me to take up wildlife photography; but I'd like to see more of you out there, I'm thinking especially of your very first videos on this channel, which I LOVED!
The last sentence you said related it to fishing, well every time I tell my dad about my photography, he always relates it back to fishing 😅 from the secret spots, to the early mornings etc.
As an ordinary person, retired, I have no need for AI. I like my photos to be simple recordations of what I saw - without any enhancement. I do enjoy trying to get a good composition.
Thanks a lot for this helpful video and for your hopefulness! Challenging area indeed. Knowing that bad actors will be able to steal other folks’ hard work is a depressing thought but the awareness is more important. Thanks again. 🙏
Another fantastic video with great updates and informative content a quick question where does I.A start topaz Denoise? Topaz photo A.I? I occasionally use Denoise because light in the UK winter is never kind especially taking bird in flight shots in the early morning on an R7 +100-500l that's still A.I. right?
If I were a professional and someone said I need to do AI images to keep up, the statement would be about as (unintentionally) insulating as when someone asks what equipment do you use as you have good images. Great discussion and surely a lot of research went into this video.
Insightful and appreciated breakdown Simon, love the levelled take on where we are and your optimistic view on actively directing where we want to go with these new technologies.
I'm new to phography and video. Been slowly learning in the past 10 years and more focussed in the last 4 years since I retired. Personally I see no value in making an AI generated image. It doesn't sit well with me and seems false. That veiwpoint might have changed however if I needed to make a living our of photography. For me thogh as a keen amatuer it has to be the real thing and the satisfaction of getting that image. I love your work Simon. It is inspirational.
Hi Simon, you can't beat a good old photographer, a real Human pressing the Shutter button. In the Medical field AI can be good for improving health outcomes and some Medical procedures. Really great topic Simon, many thanks 😊.
In one condition - if You will know that was made by real human. Practice shows that AI and AI companies pretend people working under false ID, surnames and there is no possibility to recognize who is real author or fake = AI. Just look at AI videos on YT created by Chinese propaganda party.
Times change, not always for the best. I remembered when music was played by actual musicians not drum machines and samples, singers actually had to hit the correct pitches, live didnt mean miming to backing tracks, glossy shiny buffed up soulless sterile generic crap.
Review based on title and thumbnail only. I generally skip AI generated thumbnails because of the signal that they send. Thank you for addressing this Simon.
Thanks for the info on protecting against AI. I am with the don't use if possible group. My photos and videos are taken outdoors in beautiful natural settings. They may not be as impressive but everything including the music is a personal effort. I am so lucky and so rewarded by doing it that way, it's kind of sad that people take short cuts and miss all there is to experience.
As per normal absolutely spot on. I had an experience with Aftershoot. I tried the product which sorts through your images culling the out of focus and duplicates. But it didn't work it was rubbish. So I told them and the boss face timed me ( from India) asking why. After an hour of discussion he admitted that the "beast" had not been fed enough wildlife images to be able to differentiate between good and bad. The ironic part of the meeting was he wanted me to upload ALL my raw images taken over the past 5 years to help................you can imagine what I said. But as you so rightly said it's all about the "who" and the "why" with our images. Folk follow me and admire my images because they imagine me in the situation and love the story as much as the image. Will AI change that? No of course not. I do feel that camera companies are way behind the curve on this, is that because they are making money on both sides of the fence?
I dont care about AI photos. I picked up Photography because I already spend alot of time in nature and wanted a hobby to combine with it and to learn a new skill. Also carrying a camera while hiking made me appreciate nature evens more. The pictures I take are for myself.
Ich bin ganz deiner Meinung. Auch ich fotografiere aus der gleichen Motivation heraus. Durch die Fotografie beschäftigen ich mich intensiv mit dem Motiv, beobachte, lerne, liebe und versuche zu schützen. KI gibt mir nichts!
This is a very interesting topic. I do agree that for better or worse, AI is here to stay, and I fear that it will be for the worse... Photographers have always had the ability to manipulate their photos. I think back to one of the news magazines, either "Time" or "Newsweek" back in the '90s, when they put a picture of OJ Simpson on the cover. Someone had darkened the image, apparently to make Mr. Simpson seem more menacing, and there was quite a bit of outrage over that. Nowadays, the technology makes it far too easy to create something that never actually happened. Of course, artists have been doing that for millennia, but in these highly divisive times, it's much more likely that manipulated images will be used for nefarious purposes. As a professional musician of many years, I've always taken a somewhat simplistic approach: When a computer can create a Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a Handel's Messiah, a Fauré's Requiem, a Bach's Mass in B Minor, a Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, then we can talk. Until then, count me among those who feel that the creativity MUST come from within, and no amount of AI will ever replace that. I suppose that's an archaic and outdated and narrow point of view, but then again, I'm an archaic, outdated, and narrow guy.
Agree, it's a strange new phase we are entering into with photography and many other aspects of life impacted by AI. I do like the assistance of the AI with my editing, but I have a line I personally do not cross.
Personally I'm quite excited for machine learning tools that speed up photo editing to hit the mainstream. Denoiseing, distortion correction, chromatic aberration correction, removal of transparent/translucent things like reflections in a persons glasses, there are so many things that ML could make easier/possible. It's generative AI that causes all the problems. Though even genAI could have a positive impact on photography if used in moderation. The problem right now is that genAI is a magic box where you click the button and it does the thing. If there is a way to give artists more control over how a genAI behaves, perhaps it too could aid in genuine photography.
Photography is a Hobby for me And I don't want to spend so much time doing Photoshop, Which is what is leading to more AI, Never been a fan of it, But I am not doing it for a living. I like being out in Nature and Love Photographing Wildlife, And Deer are my favorite subjects. I recently took photos of a Big Black-tailed Buck and found him a week later being consumed by Vultures, Not sure how he died because he was very healthy when I saw him before, But it was during The Rut and he could have been injured by another Buck and then taken down by Coyotes since there was fresh Coyote shit close to it and I heard one let out a yelp when I walked up to the Carcass. I was sad to see this but also glad that he will be forever immortalized by my photo's of him.
I am not a professional photographer, and AI is not affecting my work prospects (yet). From an enthusiast point of view, I am really tired of the endless stream of AI generated "photos" on social media. The good thing is that I am able to join online photography interest groups that don't suffer from that. There is also a trend right now where every image you see with an overcast sky is edited to make the clouds into impossibly dark foreboding storm clouds and every sunset is impossibly saturated. It's not AI, but as the raw editors and pixel editors improve, there's more of a temptation to make an image into something you would like to have seen, rather than something that you actually saw. I still really appreciate well-shot images with only moderate editing.
Personally, it doesn't change my philosophy of photography, because the photo taken is just a secondary result of a magical moment and really experienced in nature! and that, AI will never take away from me!
I'm glad to see you get in on the debate with this video. I would not refer to the products of generative AI image software (like Midjourney) as "photos", as you do at the beginning. Looking *like* a photo does not make something a photo anymore than a photo looking like a painting makes it a painting. So one thing that can help is by calling a spade a spade. Meta (i.e., Facebook/Instagram) is training its own generative AI using our public-facing images, without our permission and without compensation. So if we post our images to the public on Instagram or Facebook, we are fuelling the problem. This is why I've removed my own images from Meta platforms. If we want to fight a fire, we should stop adding gasoline.
@@MichaelCentofanti-l9d Hi - I have my own website, plus I use Flickr. And I realise that this does not make the images immune from scraping - but I'm looking into ways of addressing that if I can. It helps that I'm not trying to make my living from photography, so I don't have a compelling reason to pay the social media golem.
When photography came up, many people got angry because it is just a technical process requring minimal effort and skill when compared to painting. But even today many artists make paintings and drawings while photography is (at least somewhat) recognised as an art form. Also AI can be used creatively. And as many painters of "standard" pictures lost their job because of photography many photographers will loose their jobs because of AI. What AI cannot create are unique pictures from weddings, sport or music events or documentary. So there will still be a place for photography in the future, albeit a smaller one.
AI makes real photography rarer and therefore, more valuable. Just focus on the craft; the value will be apparent and highlighted by AI rather than deteriorated by it. This is the growing pain of AI taking its place within society. Adapt to the new technology and find the marketing edge that you have in that your photos are not generated in cyberspace, but in reality. Meta spent billions of dollars trying to create the meta-verse and it flopped hard. Reality always wins. Great video Simon. I love that you highlighted the benefits of AI, not just the drawbacks.
I don't see the link to Glaze. Great discussion on an important subject. AI can be good but I see where it can be bad as well. I try to be honest with my images and disclose my editing but I do not run Ai to generate full images. Maybe at times I will use generative expand to change orientation but that is about my limit.
It is the end of photography in situations where an actual photograph is not necessary. For example, much advertising (magazine, web, billboards), does not require an actual photograph and an IA image can be created more cheaply than a photograph. You have to ask yourself, if a photograph is intended to entertain rather than inform, how is it better than an AI image? An image of a snowy owl landing in the snow is equally entertaining whether it is a photography or an AI image. For photography to be superior to the AI image, simply position it as capturing reality in addition to being entertaining.
Cool to hear you cover this, but I think you skipped over an important point. Even though some tools are focused on helping photographers work more efficiently, this ultimately reduces demand and leads to fewer working photographers. Not dissimilar to the effect of automation on manufacturing jobs.
I was initially opposed to and worried about AI images, but then I realized that for what I do with photography (I shoot people saying “cheese” after their haircut) there will always be value in a real photo (how many AI images can I show you to get you to sit in my chair and trust me to cut your hair?). I also have a haircut client who is a wedding photographer, and early on he adopted AI as a part of his wedding package, offering the couple a series of both real photos and AI generated photos of their big day, as he said “AI won’t take my job but the photographer who knows how to use AI will.” I’ve also noticed that where I see AI being used I get the same feeling when I look at the cheapest absolute garbage product online, like it’s a red flag that someone put in the absolute bare minimum effort to market and list their item for sale, and because of this I generally feel like AI is a badge of low quality. I believe when AI gets better this perception will change, as it will be undetectable soon, but the fact that the nature of AI caused it to leap from innovators to the bottom rung of the lazy laggards without majority adoption makes it kind of a hard sell- it’s like something Tom Haverford from the show Parks and Recreation would be excited about but normal people would roast him over.
I've been feeling rather hopeless due to the rise of AI in recent years, since it directly affects my chances of being able to work as a creative, but your video gives me a lot of hope 😊 I remember seeing a comment that really resonated with me: "AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing what art looks like without it". we will always be interested in stories and people behind works of art (be it photo, video, illustration, or any form of art for that matter), which is something AI could never replicate. thank you for this encouraging video and for highlighting the importance of showcasing our stories and us as people along with our art 😊 p.s. I'm getting my very first camera very soon and your channel is an absolute treasure for a beginner like me! 💜
(Commenting before watching the full video): My fear is for the wildlife, and landscape, and astrophotography guys. You can’t AI a personal event. Wedding photographers, event photographers, concert photographers, etc. are safe at least for now. But I really fear for a lot of other types of photography that don’t have a specified personal/client element to it.
Simon, thanks for engaging in the public discussion of AI and its impact on photography. It's an important conversation to have and all dedicated photographers have a voice on this topic. Personally, the two issues that bother me most are the uncompensated use of original photographic works as sources for an AI image and the deception of presenting an AI image as a photograph. People have a right to know the truth and to be compensated for their creative work. AI isn't going away, but where it goes and how it's used are issues we all have a voice in defining. AI images should be required to be openly identified as such. Creatives have a right to deny use of their work as source material for generative AI apps. Any photographer or creative whose original work is used with permission as a source for an AI image should be recognized and compensated for that input.
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What are your thoughts on AI and its impact on photography? Let us know!
Opened my eyes to AI Thank You 😊
Bendy water!
I think AI art is neat and fun to play around with in what can create but what I don't like is scrolling through a timeline to see some majestic fall colors photo and all the naive people commenting on it like it was taken by a photographer.
It’s going to require some serious overhauls of copyright law. I doubt the U.S. government will be motivated to do anything about it.
Learning and getting good at photography takes years of learning, exploration, and refining your skills to take great photos. AI photography is hollow as it takes no learning, trial and error, and exploration. Taking 20 seconds to write down a prompt and get the perfect photo isn’t rewarding whatsoever and has no soul behind it.
"Take photos about things, not just of things" ... Absolutely nailed it! That's possibly the best advice I have ever gotten as a photographer.
I hope AI doesn't destroy my audience of 50 on social media.
Lmao 😂
stay strong!
50! Damm stop flexing. I have 12 I think... 2 are coworkers hah.
I hope algorithms don't kill my channel during covid. Oh wait.
Half of them lightly clad women that would love for you to "reach out" for a little chat 😂 Instagram is horrendous.
Not being a full time professional photographer, the impact on the rest of us is to a degree, insignificant. But most would agree and support your concerns outlined in the video. Having said that, at the same time let’s not lose sight of the joy of photography. The travel, the hiking, the experience, being in the moment, the satisfaction of sharing your experience with others, etc. Many of us do photography for the mental and physical stimulation in retirement. Appreciate your video and sentiment/concern about AI.
The impact is that we waste more and more time in seeing those fake pictures, eventually wasting more time blocking, instead seeing real pics.
Look at Boston Dynamics, Elon's robots and You will see hordes of them - COMMERCIAL "assistants" sent by "users" to take another picture or video - anywhere. So You or your kids will be in front of screens commanding, steering and nothing else - to final clicking "command to execute photo". That's the future - drones, assistants walking, climbing - instead of You. That's matter of $$ for promotion, big gamers as Elon are just now hungry another 0000 on their accounts.
@@cristibaluta I think you missed the point Kayahdog was making. Personally, I'm really only concerned about the pictures I take. In advertising I assume the photo is representative and not "factual". News photos also cannot be trusted. Unless I took it, I have doubts. I waste no time worrying about how authentic something I see on the internet is. But perhaps I've missed the point?
Hello Simon.
Very interesting contribution and good tips.
I’m not earning money with photography, therefore I’m not affected in this particular context… but what’s hitting the photo branch now has rolled over my line of business already: I’m a translator!
I also thought that AI would take over after my time, but 3 or 4 years were enough. Studying languages and culture, reading, communicating, acquiring knowledge in a wide variety of fields, from science to economics and from law to literature, working on mastering different writing styles - marketing, journalistic, legal, scientific… only to be replaced by AI, that’s frustrating. The AI models used today were also trained over years with the texts of professional translators, many of them digging their own grave by giving away their work in exchange for free software.
Funnily, I know several photographers here in Switzerland complaining about AI in advertising photography… who translated their website with DeepL.
The expression „What goes around comes around“ proves very accurate.
Many people embrace AI until they are directly concerned. Only then will they understand the full ramifications.
For now, both in languages and in photography, there are luckily people ready to pay for the uniqueness of what they get!
Bonne continuation!
This is the best photography vlogger. 🎉
Simon, you are by far one of the best TH-cam photographers out there. I know TH-cam is just one of your avenues of experience, but it has helped novice photographers like me immensely. Getting better quality family photos. Thanks.
This has been concerning me for awhile now, thanks Simon for taking the time to address it. I am very unsure about what this is going to bring in the future, I think its going to be more bad than good.
I'm not sure, but I think we'll find new ways to keep making images.
@@simon_dentremont At some stage before you can continue to do that you will have to comply to the globalist power structure. Make no mistake. You WILL have to comply . . . . . . . . . . . . with Satan!
More bad than good, 100%
I am sure we'find. The key word is "genuine" photography. People , at a cettain pointer, will open their eyes.
One of your best videos. And you have set the bar very high. An excellent discussion of this issue. Thank you
The thumbnail for this video is absolutely diabolical. Love it! Thanks for another great video, Simon!
As a retired senior & a hobby photographer I have the option of not posting my photographs on social media ( & I don't) I do it for myself & challenge myself to have each outing better than my previous one. I haven't aced the theory of photography, so it's still a learning curve. As I sit here some evenings with my adult beverage and go through my library to try & cull the herd so to speak, I find that I'm culling less & less photos. I must have learned something along the way.......
I see AI like social media. Had the potential to be used in such an amazing way....but instead it's doing significantly more harm than good.
As a hobby I think photography will be safe. As a career, especially for people trying to make a name for themselves now? I feel things are bleak....and the sad thing is that there are many more industries/careers that will be affected far greater.
100% agree with the first line. I think the impact on professionals will depend on the genre. I don't think we are anywhere near a point where people just want to plug words into an AI prompt for their wedding photos, graduation, newborns, etc. Plenty of people that aren't photographers are just as sick of AI as we are so that's a positive. I can certainly see it destroying something like fashion photography where a business wants a cheap, instant result with AI. If AI gets good enough that they can't tell a difference, why would they pay big bucks for a photographer and a slow turnaround when a few words in a box gives the same result? Choose wisely if you want to make a career out of photography. TLDR: AI is trash.
@ko300zx the problem is mainly for professionals I fear. A wedding is an example where people can take pictures, and then improve the picture via AI, so a potential blessing for amateurs, not for professionals. I hope I'm wrong.
@@pleclere Being a good wedding photographer is about far more than being able to post process a few images. They're trusted to capture the event and all of the important moments. Amateurs are not taking that away because they can fix a few bad images with AI. And both a professional and amateur can use AI to fix images. Fixing things with AI is not a problem for anyone. It's creating something out of nothing that will take away from professionals. Creating a product photoshoot or fashion shoot using nothing but AI is possible. That is something that was previously done by professionals. Those are the people that will hurt. And I don't think I know anyone that wants their wedding photos to be an AI generated creation that never actually happened. That's not a real concern as far as I'm aware.
Thanks for another great video message, Simon! Thank you! I walked out one morning to see if I could get a shot of the whale, but it appears the tide took it away and I kick myself for not taking the time to get a shot of the tree… I live so close to both sites… perhaps that’s the subject of another video… don’t wait until “someday” to get that shot for it may not be there forever! Cheers!
I’m a back end operations type of person and will always value an original image that is a combination of timing, location and exploring capabilities of the hardware. I appreciate that you sat with a thermos of coffee after hiking three miles at O’dark thirty, waiting for the perfect lighting moment or capturing elusive wildlife in a memorable pose. A photo is layers of stories.
Thank you Simon for a realistic and adult discussion on artificial intelligence and photography. I am so tired of seeing images being posted on social media that one can immediately tell they are computer generated and the person posting the image tries to make you think it's a real photo. One detail that many of these "fake" images possess is that the lighting (shadows and highlights) are not consistent with real world conditions. However better software will make this more difficult to detect.
I think you have touched on some of the most salient points, regarding AI, with this video. YT kept showing me your thumbnail image for this video but my brain said it was an AI image so I ignored it. After two days I finally checked the tagline. LOL. Thanks for this Simon. Perhaps camera companies will help us. I think it's in their best interest as well as ours. Then again, they could have added safety features to help us deal with the issue of gear theft as well. Then again there is nothing better than taking personal responsibility. Cheers.
I love the idea of a story card, I collect pottery and keep an image of each piece, the person who made it and date. I often save their statements as it includes their personal reason for their art. It fits their pieces so well!
Sorry but I see it every week on flea markets in Europe - beloved medals, photo albums, cards, wwII awards of bravery(!!!) belonging to old family members - sometimes picked up from trash, mud by unknown people because beloved grandchildren threw away everything left by their passed away grandpas. In Europe it's typical - young remove everything what memorizes their elders. That means - all You will left will be brutally destroyed - by Your family or unknown new owners of Your home.
As for my own photos ,I like to keep them honest with the lest amount of post production but the noise reduction AI has going for it is very useful. Microsoft's Co-Pilot is at it's heart is spyware I can do without it and will either remove or disable. A thought provoking video ,thanks!
Noise reduction, removing unwanted items or distractions and I admit increasing the size of the canvas therefore saving a flying bird etc these I regularly use and love however some Ai generated pictures are just annoying 🤷🏼♂️
9:06 opt-out option is no good. For such sensitive things opt-in is the only acceptable option. Also do we really believe that Microsoft will obey your settings anyways?
Thank you for making these videos. I have just started my own channel and the information on here has been really helpful.
Such a brilliant youtuber, Simon, your content, videos and highly informative advice on everything photographic is very much valued!
Thank You "Grey Owl Master" for another enlightening video. Please keep going because we need a light in the darkness. By the way - I appreciate first Grey Owl's books. Best wishes from Poland for You and All You family and friends.
Great vid! People will always take pictures and what is real will always be more valued than what is fake.
Exactly!
Hi Simon:
I am lucky with respect to my photography, in that for me is a hobby. I know what i created with my camera and my time and hart. I don't have to cell my work for a living. I just share my work with my family and friends and use photography as way to get away from the world for a while. AI while it does trouble me in some respects, I know I still get great pleasure from the work I do and share.
That's a great outlook!
Excellent content. At the end of the day, everything is about value, and how you add it to your photography work. Is not the image itself, as the mere compound of pixels and colors, is about what lies behind the image, what it means for you and for the spectator.
Thanks for your time and sharing your insight!
The unbridled use of AI, and all the fake crap distributed on
the internet makes me think of the movie Total Recall.
In a few years we won’t be able to tell whats real and what isn’t.
Some very good points made. I have found that people are more likely to purchase a copy of a print if they know the story behind it. I have found that giving my prints a title really helps with a potential customer's interest in the print.
We deal with this a lot in sports photography. Lots of people are using the AI generative fill or object removal to take out imperfections (or add additional space) to their images.
While the AI can help a lot of creatives generate the images needed for graphics, we still need photographers to document and freeze moments of games.
I love your approach of "take photos about things, not just of things". In my photography studies days, we called it "photo journalistic approach". on a preventative note: The pocketbook is best place to make an impact. A consortium of artists banding together and filling lawsuits with an extraordinarily high dollar amount, with the intent to, shoot a round across the bow if you will, might create enough of a deterrent to future violators. Getty's lawsuit might be a step in the right direction, but why only $150k per image? why not $10mil per image? Unreasonable perhaps? Who says?
Thank you so much for all your videos. I enjoy them greatly, and they are very helpful and motivating.
I think you saved the best point til last. Telling the story is so important. I need to do more of it.
I think you nailed it by telling a story with your photos, I can say I was afraid of "digital" photography because of PhotoShop and how photos were manipulated when it first came out, but I learned to embrace it. I feel in time, we can learn to use and embrace AI, too, as long as they (AI) play fair and pay for our images.
Putting more storytelling into my photos, specifically the ones I post to social media, is definitely something I should work on. I've always kept my descriptions short on the belief that the photos should speak for themselves, but when the bots are being more expressive than me, maybe it's time to change things up so that I stand out as a human being more, one that other human beings might be interested in. Thanks for your tips!
Go Simon! Your videos are always educational and inspiring. AI has been long in the making if you look at our society's attraction to technology, the hyper-visual in movies and commercials, our ongoing fascination with perfection and intensity. A huge issue that does not often come up, however, is the immense energy required to run AI programs and the destruction to our planet to procure said energy. Google is building a new nuclear plant just to run their own AI projects. Microsoft is rebooting Three Mile Island, famed for its near meltdown in 1979. This should give us all pause.
By always taking pics as you encourage, I was noticed at a hotel. The manager asked to see some of my photos on my camera which I did tell her was raw. She was so excited! I was then offered a job doing a hotels photography and postcards by her while on vacation. Getting details dialed in by tomorrow.
That's fantastic!
@@simon_dentremont Thank you so much and I credit you for all the wonderful teaching you did. I have learned so much! You also are so encouraging to all of us to put ourselves out there. I am a bit shy about my photography and now I am much more self assured.
A refreshing and practical take on the subject. Thank you very much👍
I never thought about selling myself as part of the image and telling the story of how I created the image! Thank you for the great tips!
Great video. All of us need to be active in the establishment of rules and boundaries concerning AI. It may be here to stay, but so are we!
My sentiment (almost) exactly. Storytelling as the essence of photography is the key here. I believe there will always be a market for the craftsmanship of real human beings although it will shrink. The most popular photographers (and storytellers) will be golden, though.
I think that people will start to appreciate real photography more. To quote Ed Harris's character in Kodachrome, "No matter how good something looks, it doesn't beat the real thing"
"About things, not of things" is a beautiful way to capture it. We have souls, we have perspective, we can give things meaning. AI can only replicate. It will never be able to convey an original human experience, or share an emotion, or appreciate the magic that a good photograph (of reality) can capture.
Take, for example, that famous National Geo cover you showed. The true image - her eyes - are captivating and austere. In her you can see strength... apprehension... survival. Her eyes tell the whole story of a girl living in Afghanistan, for which 1000 words would never capture. OTOH, the AI replica of that image is honestly one of the creepiest things I have ever seen. The only thing it conveys is the uncanny.
Simon, all great points. I fear for the future of those who make a living from photography. I've been with Squarespace for several years now but have never used their Ai function... I will try that out. As always thank you for this. I still look forward to meeting you some day. Cheers from Texas.
I think there are still lots of opportunities out there.
Yeah, there's the downside - much of the stuff you mentioned. But I believe the end result will be that real photos by real photographers will become more in demand. AI can fake a photo, but it can't capture a moment because it doesn't know what a moment is. The moment is too subjective for AI to ever know what it is, so it could never create it (and sometimes that capture of a moment is pure accident - I doubt any AI would ever be able to learn what a 'moment' is or how to create it by accident). Nah, I'm not worried. This is just like when e-readers came out. Everyone said it would kill books. It won a few battles but in the end books won the war.
Wer vertraut denn noch welchem Fotografen? Wer auf einem hart umkämpften Markt noch ein bisschen Geld verdienen muss, legt irgendwann seine letzten Prinzipien zur Seite.
Nice summary of a topic, as usual. Photography for yourself and trusted friends who will believe you should stick around and still be a hobby. Business uses are in danger, as you say. Also contests, where some people will cheat. Social media cheating will be rampant, but I think it's mostly rubbish now and avoid it anyway. In the end, as usual, the real problem is people. It's what we do with the tools that determines good or bad. I like your hopeful ideas. I hope some of them work.
Hey Simon! Are you planning on shooting more videos that show you out in the field working your magic? Don't get me wrong, your content is so helpfuland has been one of the major inspirations for me to take up wildlife photography; but I'd like to see more of you out there, I'm thinking especially of your very first videos on this channel, which I LOVED!
The last sentence you said related it to fishing, well every time I tell my dad about my photography, he always relates it back to fishing 😅 from the secret spots, to the early mornings etc.
Thank you for this informative video. This expanded my understanding of AI.
Thank you, Simon - Your knowledge base and insights are amazing and I appreciate your sharing!
As an ordinary person, retired, I have no need for AI. I like my photos to be simple recordations of what I saw - without any enhancement. I do enjoy trying to get a good composition.
Thanks a lot for this helpful video and for your hopefulness! Challenging area indeed. Knowing that bad actors will be able to steal other folks’ hard work is a depressing thought but the awareness is more important. Thanks again. 🙏
Another fantastic video with great updates and informative content a quick question where does I.A start topaz Denoise? Topaz photo A.I? I occasionally use Denoise because light in the UK winter is never kind especially taking bird in flight shots in the early morning on an R7 +100-500l that's still A.I. right?
I am glad that we met on this planet at the same time and that the Internet exists in our time, Mr Simon. 🙂
Simon, thank you for this comprehensive analysis
I'm saving this post for future reference. Very useful. Thank you.
inspiring content, thanks Simon .
If I were a professional and someone said I need to do AI images to keep up, the statement would be about as (unintentionally) insulating as when someone asks what equipment do you use as you have good images. Great discussion and surely a lot of research went into this video.
Insightful and appreciated breakdown Simon, love the levelled take on where we are and your optimistic view on actively directing where we want to go with these new technologies.
I dont do photography for clout or money, I do it because I love it and love how I feel when doing it!
Thumbs up! Nice work, timely & well said.
You are a gem man! I wonder if you do any voice over work? You'd be great on educational STEM videos!
GREAT information/discussion Simon....
I'm new to phography and video. Been slowly learning in the past 10 years and more focussed in the last 4 years since I retired. Personally I see no value in making an AI generated image. It doesn't sit well with me and seems false. That veiwpoint might have changed however if I needed to make a living our of photography. For me thogh as a keen amatuer it has to be the real thing and the satisfaction of getting that image.
I love your work Simon. It is inspirational.
Hi Simon, you can't beat a good old photographer, a real Human pressing the Shutter button. In the Medical field AI can be good for improving health outcomes and some Medical procedures. Really great topic Simon, many thanks 😊.
Thanks Simon 😊
In one condition - if You will know that was made by real human. Practice shows that AI and AI companies pretend people working under false ID, surnames and there is no possibility to recognize who is real author or fake = AI. Just look at AI videos on YT created by Chinese propaganda party.
Going out and taking photos is still the most fun!
Worthwhile advice. You may want to check out that Squarespace overlay in the video for spelling.🧐
Carry on. 👍🥂
Positive ending, fantastic.
Times change, not always for the best. I remembered when music was played by actual musicians not drum machines and samples, singers actually had to hit the correct pitches, live didnt mean miming to backing tracks, glossy shiny buffed up soulless sterile generic crap.
Great info. Thank you.
You're welcome!
Review based on title and thumbnail only. I generally skip AI generated thumbnails because of the signal that they send. Thank you for addressing this Simon.
Thanks for the info on protecting against AI. I am with the don't use if possible group. My photos and videos are taken outdoors in beautiful natural settings. They may not be as impressive but everything including the music is a personal effort. I am so lucky and so rewarded by doing it that way, it's kind of sad that people take short cuts and miss all there is to experience.
The image you created of you reminds me of agent Smith in matrix, i don't know if it is on purpose but it fits the theme of the video very well
As per normal absolutely spot on. I had an experience with Aftershoot. I tried the product which sorts through your images culling the out of focus and duplicates. But it didn't work it was rubbish. So I told them and the boss face timed me ( from India) asking why. After an hour of discussion he admitted that the "beast" had not been fed enough wildlife images to be able to differentiate between good and bad. The ironic part of the meeting was he wanted me to upload ALL my raw images taken over the past 5 years to help................you can imagine what I said. But as you so rightly said it's all about the "who" and the "why" with our images. Folk follow me and admire my images because they imagine me in the situation and love the story as much as the image. Will AI change that? No of course not. I do feel that camera companies are way behind the curve on this, is that because they are making money on both sides of the fence?
Great video Simon. I appreciate the perspective since I just can’t keep up with AI. You packed a ton of information into 14 minutes.
Thank you, Simon. I feel a little less apprehensive about AI, yet still cautious.
I dont care about AI photos.
I picked up Photography because I already spend alot of time in nature and wanted a hobby to combine with it and to learn a new skill. Also carrying a camera while hiking made me appreciate nature evens more.
The pictures I take are for myself.
Ich bin ganz deiner Meinung. Auch ich fotografiere aus der gleichen Motivation heraus. Durch die Fotografie beschäftigen ich mich intensiv mit dem Motiv, beobachte, lerne, liebe und versuche zu schützen. KI gibt mir nichts!
Excellent video. Thank you.
Thanks! I needed to hear that
that was excellent and important. and the squarespace misspelling was closer to 6 than to 7 minutes. --
bak --
This is a very interesting topic. I do agree that for better or worse, AI is here to stay, and I fear that it will be for the worse... Photographers have always had the ability to manipulate their photos. I think back to one of the news magazines, either "Time" or "Newsweek" back in the '90s, when they put a picture of OJ Simpson on the cover. Someone had darkened the image, apparently to make Mr. Simpson seem more menacing, and there was quite a bit of outrage over that. Nowadays, the technology makes it far too easy to create something that never actually happened. Of course, artists have been doing that for millennia, but in these highly divisive times, it's much more likely that manipulated images will be used for nefarious purposes.
As a professional musician of many years, I've always taken a somewhat simplistic approach: When a computer can create a Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, a Handel's Messiah, a Fauré's Requiem, a Bach's Mass in B Minor, a Stravinsky's Le Sacre du Printemps, then we can talk. Until then, count me among those who feel that the creativity MUST come from within, and no amount of AI will ever replace that. I suppose that's an archaic and outdated and narrow point of view, but then again, I'm an archaic, outdated, and narrow guy.
Agree, it's a strange new phase we are entering into with photography and many other aspects of life impacted by AI. I do like the assistance of the AI with my editing, but I have a line I personally do not cross.
Personally I'm quite excited for machine learning tools that speed up photo editing to hit the mainstream. Denoiseing, distortion correction, chromatic aberration correction, removal of transparent/translucent things like reflections in a persons glasses, there are so many things that ML could make easier/possible.
It's generative AI that causes all the problems. Though even genAI could have a positive impact on photography if used in moderation. The problem right now is that genAI is a magic box where you click the button and it does the thing. If there is a way to give artists more control over how a genAI behaves, perhaps it too could aid in genuine photography.
Another fantastic video Simon, thank you.
I like this video. Very informative, constructive and positive.
Photography is a Hobby for me And I don't want to spend so much time doing Photoshop, Which is what is leading to more AI, Never been a fan of it, But I am not doing it for a living. I like being out in Nature and Love Photographing Wildlife, And Deer are my favorite subjects. I recently took photos of a Big Black-tailed Buck and found him a week later being consumed by Vultures, Not sure how he died because he was very healthy when I saw him before, But it was during The Rut and he could have been injured by another Buck and then taken down by Coyotes since there was fresh Coyote shit close to it and I heard one let out a yelp when I walked up to the Carcass. I was sad to see this but also glad that he will be forever immortalized by my photo's of him.
I am not a professional photographer, and AI is not affecting my work prospects (yet). From an enthusiast point of view, I am really tired of the endless stream of AI generated "photos" on social media. The good thing is that I am able to join online photography interest groups that don't suffer from that. There is also a trend right now where every image you see with an overcast sky is edited to make the clouds into impossibly dark foreboding storm clouds and every sunset is impossibly saturated. It's not AI, but as the raw editors and pixel editors improve, there's more of a temptation to make an image into something you would like to have seen, rather than something that you actually saw. I still really appreciate well-shot images with only moderate editing.
I absolutely hate the way AI is being brought in and forced on us in so many ways.
Great video and information Simon
Personally, it doesn't change my philosophy of photography, because the photo taken is just a secondary result of a magical moment and really experienced in nature! and that, AI will never take away from me!
I'm glad to see you get in on the debate with this video.
I would not refer to the products of generative AI image software (like Midjourney) as "photos", as you do at the beginning. Looking *like* a photo does not make something a photo anymore than a photo looking like a painting makes it a painting. So one thing that can help is by calling a spade a spade.
Meta (i.e., Facebook/Instagram) is training its own generative AI using our public-facing images, without our permission and without compensation. So if we post our images to the public on Instagram or Facebook, we are fuelling the problem. This is why I've removed my own images from Meta platforms. If we want to fight a fire, we should stop adding gasoline.
Then where are you posting your images other than FB or IG? Let’s build up these sites!
@@MichaelCentofanti-l9d Hi - I have my own website, plus I use Flickr. And I realise that this does not make the images immune from scraping - but I'm looking into ways of addressing that if I can. It helps that I'm not trying to make my living from photography, so I don't have a compelling reason to pay the social media golem.
When photography came up, many people got angry because it is just a technical process requring minimal effort and skill when compared to painting. But even today many artists make paintings and drawings while photography is (at least somewhat) recognised as an art form. Also AI can be used creatively. And as many painters of "standard" pictures lost their job because of photography many photographers will loose their jobs because of AI. What AI cannot create are unique pictures from weddings, sport or music events or documentary. So there will still be a place for photography in the future, albeit a smaller one.
AI makes real photography rarer and therefore, more valuable. Just focus on the craft; the value will be apparent and highlighted by AI rather than deteriorated by it. This is the growing pain of AI taking its place within society. Adapt to the new technology and find the marketing edge that you have in that your photos are not generated in cyberspace, but in reality. Meta spent billions of dollars trying to create the meta-verse and it flopped hard. Reality always wins. Great video Simon. I love that you highlighted the benefits of AI, not just the drawbacks.
I don't see the link to Glaze. Great discussion on an important subject. AI can be good but I see where it can be bad as well. I try to be honest with my images and disclose my editing but I do not run Ai to generate full images. Maybe at times I will use generative expand to change orientation but that is about my limit.
It is the end of photography in situations where an actual photograph is not necessary. For example, much advertising (magazine, web, billboards), does not require an actual photograph and an IA image can be created more cheaply than a photograph.
You have to ask yourself, if a photograph is intended to entertain rather than inform, how is it better than an AI image? An image of a snowy owl landing in the snow is equally entertaining whether it is a photography or an AI image. For photography to be superior to the AI image, simply position it as capturing reality in addition to being entertaining.
Cool to hear you cover this, but I think you skipped over an important point. Even though some tools are focused on helping photographers work more efficiently, this ultimately reduces demand and leads to fewer working photographers. Not dissimilar to the effect of automation on manufacturing jobs.
I was initially opposed to and worried about AI images, but then I realized that for what I do with photography (I shoot people saying “cheese” after their haircut) there will always be value in a real photo (how many AI images can I show you to get you to sit in my chair and trust me to cut your hair?). I also have a haircut client who is a wedding photographer, and early on he adopted AI as a part of his wedding package, offering the couple a series of both real photos and AI generated photos of their big day, as he said “AI won’t take my job but the photographer who knows how to use AI will.” I’ve also noticed that where I see AI being used I get the same feeling when I look at the cheapest absolute garbage product online, like it’s a red flag that someone put in the absolute bare minimum effort to market and list their item for sale, and because of this I generally feel like AI is a badge of low quality. I believe when AI gets better this perception will change, as it will be undetectable soon, but the fact that the nature of AI caused it to leap from innovators to the bottom rung of the lazy laggards without majority adoption makes it kind of a hard sell- it’s like something Tom Haverford from the show Parks and Recreation would be excited about but normal people would roast him over.
I've been feeling rather hopeless due to the rise of AI in recent years, since it directly affects my chances of being able to work as a creative, but your video gives me a lot of hope 😊 I remember seeing a comment that really resonated with me: "AI accidentally made me believe in the concept of a human soul by showing what art looks like without it". we will always be interested in stories and people behind works of art (be it photo, video, illustration, or any form of art for that matter), which is something AI could never replicate. thank you for this encouraging video and for highlighting the importance of showcasing our stories and us as people along with our art 😊
p.s. I'm getting my very first camera very soon and your channel is an absolute treasure for a beginner like me! 💜
(Commenting before watching the full video): My fear is for the wildlife, and landscape, and astrophotography guys. You can’t AI a personal event. Wedding photographers, event photographers, concert photographers, etc. are safe at least for now. But I really fear for a lot of other types of photography that don’t have a specified personal/client element to it.
Simon, thanks for engaging in the public discussion of AI and its impact on photography. It's an important conversation to have and all dedicated photographers have a voice on this topic.
Personally, the two issues that bother me most are the uncompensated use of original photographic works as sources for an AI image and the deception of presenting an AI image as a photograph.
People have a right to know the truth and to be compensated for their creative work. AI isn't going away, but where it goes and how it's used are issues we all have a voice in defining.
AI images should be required to be openly identified as such. Creatives have a right to deny use of their work as source material for generative AI apps. Any photographer or creative whose original work is used with permission as a source for an AI image should be recognized and compensated for that input.