I dont care if other photographers take better pictures then me, I also don't care if AI can make better pictures then me. I enjoy the process of making photos for me.
I loved your post. I think the same, I don't care if other people are better than me. I just love taking pictures. And I love the pictures I take. For me, that's enough.
I agree, however, I would object strongly if AI software could trawl the web and cloud-based storage such as Adobe CC and use / profit from our photos. We buy the gear, travel to the location, buy / lease the post-production software, etc. To have some AI 'artist' type in a few commands and their software gain free access to our photos and get paid for their efforts seems totally unacceptable to me. This seems as much a debate about ethics and copyright as it is about whether AI will do away with photography as we know it.
For enthusiasts like you and me, that's all well and good. The issue Ted is discussing is whether AI advancements will affect pros: those who shoot commercially, art photographers who sell their prints, etc. For them, potential clients who use AI instead of hiring a real photographer or buying a real photograph represent lost income. It could be a big deal down the road for some pros.
Thank you for saying this. I also feel the same way and I don’t do much post editing because I am a realist and when I look back on a photo I know the photo is about 99.99% of what came out of the camera.
I imagine that artists back in the day were having a similar discussion about this new technology called photography and its impact on their art world. Landscape painters, portrait painters all had their concerns yet we still have artists that prefer to put a brush to canvas or pencil to a sketch pad. It is the joy and immense satisfaction of creating that fuels artists whether they are painters, sculptors or photographers. Speaking for myself as a non-professional photographer my joy on my walks or my travels is having camera in hand and capturing the best images possible in camera. AI or no AI has no relevance in my satisfaction and love of photography. AI may one day be able to spit out whatever your imagination can type out on a keyboard but it will never replace the mental and physical satisfaction of creating something by hand or capturing a real moment in time.
back in the day they were not having a similar discussion about a new technology, cos it was not ripping them off by copying and combining their work without a person or a group of people being behind it. Not only A.I. is a non-entity to have an argument with, it already holds a memory of someone elses work and is capable of spitting out derivatives ad nauseam. As a hobbyist I am not affected, but I can see professionals' livelyhoods, especially in commercial and abstract photography, being nagatively shaken up this in the near future.
Of course, artists love to paint and photographers love to take photos. That is not the point. The problem ist that 99% of them can no longer make a living based on their vocations.
@@simonpayne7994 @Mack S You don't think professions have lost jobs prior to AI? I remember growing up seeing photographers having their own storefronts all around town. Not much of that anymore as it doesn't require a lot of training to take great pictures anymore. Same goes for music industry and virtually everything else. In this day and age, you need to rise above it unfortunately if you want to make it. Also, let's face it, most people in the world have jobs to put food on the table, so while I am an artist at heart, I can't be crying too much about people not getting to make enough money in this area. There are far worse problems in the world as it is.
@@simonpayne7994 That argument can be said of any technology that replaces humans, or any new technology that supplants an older one. Adapt or die, so-to-speak.
@trekkeruss You are perfectly right - adapt or die. The problem, as I see it, is that many people will not be able to adapt, or, that on principle adaption is impossible. As long as it all just relates to jobs, and there are enough other jobs around, okay, I might not be able to keep up my standard of living, but at least I am not facing doomsday. Along with computers and integrated circuits we got software into just about everything. Software, together with hundreds of bugs. Due to buggy software even your coffee machine may have to be "re-booted" now and again. On the other hand, if you have to stop the motor and re-boot your automobile in the middle of a busy crossing, this is not funny any more. The inherent problem is that today's software has become so complicated, that nobody can master its complexity any more. AI is the next step to oblivion. In a software program you can achtually look for, find and successfully fix a bug. In AI there is no program to look at. If something malfunctions, now and again, you do not know how or why it went wrong. All you can do is train it a bit more and hope for the best. This could be the doomsday case.
As a hobby photographer AI has already had an impact, whether it is with software or in the cameras with autofocus. Both designed to help not replace the process of making a photo. What AI can never replace is the experience and feel of just being there when you press the shutter button.
@@carocompostindeed 😂 and here we also talked about prompt ai not the 'fixing ur photo ai' thats mean we not even need to took photo to create good photograph just choose words and tadaa.. not to mention prompt using data that really making copyright useless 😂
AI can and will replace literally any kind of photography, insofar as people who need those services elect to have it do so. There may be plenty of hangers on (e.g., the people who still listen to vinyl) who prefer the human element - but eventually AI will 100% be able to generate anything someone wants, and arrive at perfection through iteration. This really is just a fact. What it will mean for the industry is less certain, but the tech is undeniable.
I’m 80 and a lifelong photographer and am using AI seeded with my own images and pushing and pulling them around with the verbal modifiers. I’m getting output that really extends my ability to create images. Actually I’m into territory I never would have have experienced otherwise. So I don’t find it either scary or troubling but I do feel bit lazy when the AI throws up a real beauty so easily!
Hi Ted. I’m a mostly retired attorney as well as a life-long avid photographer. On the AI question, my first thought is that any commercial use of AI-manipulated art is ripe for legal challenges and that, as you pointed out, AI is necessarily based on all the information fed into the system (including existing, “real” artwork, i.e., copyright protected material). In that sense, it is not dissimilar to the current problem of people posting unauthorized copies of photos on the web. One of my workshop instructors some years back mentioned that his attorneys collect instances of unauthorized use of his work and make an annual sweep, sending demand letters to the wrongful users, resulting in a nice amount of passive income each year. On a related issue, the editorial use of computer generated images is similar to the issues surrounding the early use of digitally manipulated images in news stories. You probably remember that Newsweek published a cover photo from which one person’s image had been removed. Newsweek included a note that the cover was meant as a photo illustration rather than an actual record of what occurred. I think that any AI-generated “news” images should (at least ethically) be similarly noted, which means they would not likely supplant photographers’ real images. As for the intellectual property matter (and I am not am IP lawyer), it is important to keep in mind that statutes are only one part of the matter. As you noted, the facts of s specific matter, as well as how they are presented (how the case is framed), the jurisdiction in which it is brought, and the previous case law are largely determinative of the outcome. An unsatisfactory result in one instance does not mean that the overarching issue is resolved. Unless the courts somehow decide that copyright protection no longer exists, it is hard to imagine that a company could freely publish AI artwork that was demonstrably based on protected material. It’s all fascinating, from a technical, gee whiz standpoint as well as the legal ramifications, and, like most of us, I’m routing for the human side of the equation.
I'm betting that the big money on the tech side, along with the argument that the AI is just doing what humans do is going to go the AI way. The AI derivative is no more a derivative than a human one. I heard one person opine that for copyright "derivative work" is a specific term of art, and does not mean simply influenced by. Like you cannot copyright a "style", so just as a human can make a painting in the style of Rockwell and not break any laws, so can an AI. The other interesting thing however is that AI can't get copyright in it's creations - I think there has been at least one or two cases where only humans or specifically "persons" can get copyright (this was over a monkey taking it's own photograph after stealing a camera).
I almost have to wonder if this isn't a more relevant question for illustrators than for photographers. I think very often what photographers sell pictures of is specific enough that Midjourney or any of the others can't generate them (like a particular product or person or building) just like is the case with stock images. On the other hand, these AI image generators can fulfill open-ended requirements pretty well. Midjourney might be able to generate logos for your small business where you would've hired a graphic designer, but it won't be able to generate a picture of the façade for the website (I think, tell me if I'm wrong).
I think more than ever it is important to print and show your work. I think we should come together as artists and keep our work off the internet. AI can’t pull from material it can’t get.
I make book covers. Many layers are needed for the work I do. I needed a very old map of the U.S., before the states were delineated, as a base layer for the cover. I looked on ebay, and map repros were available. But there were these decent jpegs, too. I still had to spend hours on that jpeg to clean it up. Yes, I could have bought the repro, but being paid 250 for a cover, 30 bucks for the map... But now, with Topaz Photo AI, I could have cleaned it up in one minute, screen grabbed the result on my large monitor, still using the demo mode of Topaz which has no expiration date. I'm amazed what it does to my old pocket camera 8 meg imagery. Sky noise is gone, edge detail excellent.
I agree with you, the journey to a photograph in which you plan travel and see the photograph and you have a camera to capture that image that is why I take photographs.
I think one thing that AI opens the gates to is actually, creating works that can be placed in a different era. Like giving access to a time that's not available anymore, and yet can be explored through what is know about that era. I think for abstract and maybe even landscape photography, AI will be able to offer a way of exploring these subjects and I'm interested in using it as such.
Despite all this talk about photography being art, I have always believed that, at its core, photography is rooted in documentation. This is not to say that photography is not artistic. But the one thing that no other creative medium can't do is show what things looked like, what happened at a certain point in time. This is the one thing AI can never do. Of course, it will be able to simulate (in other words: fake) things, but then it is not documentation anymore. And I think this is why photography will always be able to justify its existence, regardless of how good AI will become at creating images. And, of course, everything @Usuallyroamingrob wrote 45 minutes ago.
The fascination with Cartier-Bresson is not that you couldn't arrange items in a frame artificially like a painter. Neither is the fascination that AI can cut down the time a painter needed to milliseconds. The fascination is that he managed to find these arrangements in the real world and record them in fractions of a second with (often) interesting subject matter to top it all off. The only problem with AI is that it will become more difficult to tell fact from fiction. Other than that the fascination with real and good photography will remain the same.
It would be really helpful if there was software available to identify whether AI had been used to create the imagery. If it becomes so difficult to distinguish reality from fake, politicians and criminals could use it to pursue their own deviant agendas.
I Used to work with scanning and editing photos during five year's (as well as taking portraits etc). 1) The highest quality photos I ever scanned was a 8x10 contact prints that was >50 years old. 2) Another time I had the chance to digitise part of the portfolio of a Swedish photographer who made a living (in the 70's and 80's like Ted talked about) by shooting 4x5 photos of buildings, bridges, power station/generators etc built by Scanska (Swedish construction company). 3) Whenever I worked with a >75 year old glas negative I was impressed by the quality of the images. 4) Today we take 5,10 or 100 pictures per day (almost all of them crap). 40-50 years ago people had their portrait taken by professionals twice per year (or something). I can only guess which photos will stand the test of time. -For does of you who live in Stockholm, Sweden you might have heard of Uggla (släkt med Magnus Uggla, porträttfotonas kung på 50-60 talet, ateljé på Kungsgatan). I rather have one good photo vs 100 bad ones! 5) l loved whenever someone wanted to digitize Kodak Chrome, haven't seen anything that beats those colours yet (maybe SIBA Chrome print's) My point is not to get nostalgic and/or say film is better than digital (although nothing I have seen beats an 8x10). What can be automised and what can't? The worst photos to work with were always them Instagram filtered, pixeled, outright horrible pictures, AI digitally improved... AI is at best a tool! I haven't seen it work at any satisfactory level yet in serious photography! -In the field of automated text there's also AI. -I have recently picked up the habit to use an AI auto-generator to give semi-automatic answers to my girlfriend's angry text messages! -I feed the AI her text and it spit's out a suggestion that I can use as a working start 33% of the time (with heavy editing). Ie I think good photography will survive AI. To recapitulate, the best images I worked with were >50 years old 8x10 (no problems with 14 extra fingers protruding from the Humerus).
2:50 Being a professionel photographer for 30+ years I’ve always supported technical evolution. On the other side Via my secondary activity as photography teacher for the past 15 years I saw the evolution of visual content. As we all know there’s a huuuuge load of daily visual content being spread around the globe and between people. It’s sad, but at the same tile stunning to see the younger generation X and Z use more visuals than words to express themselves. The need for photographic collages and montages was increasing immensely… hence the evolution in super easy/quick masking and selecting in all photo and video editing software. For the moment I don’t think the AI generated imaging will be a threat for photography. 10 years ago CGI was the photography killer number 1. But instead of killing photography, it pushed itself out of contention because product photography for instance got back to proper photography instead of CGI thanks to major photographic developments in editing software. What this AI generated imagery will cause is an extended way of expressing ideas and feelings that can be created “on the spot” and shared instantly. It will only benefit photography because of the obvious big quality difference. I could go on for a bit longer, but it’s an excellent item to share especially te subject on copyrights… who owns the AI generated image for instance if it’s created with visuals of other people, artists and visions 🤔🤔🤔 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 subject
I think this AI imaging is less of a threat to photography than it is for illustrators in the commercial field. Like if I was a concept artist for films or products I would be keeping a nervous eye on this AI imaging. I can imagine if you are designing, say, a pamphlet and you need some cartoony illustrations of people running or jumping, you could either pay an illustrator, pay less for some stock clip art image, or you could generate a unique version for free. It’s this low creative commercial work that often acts as a starting point for many people in this field that I think is at risk. High-end stuff will always require some form of uniquely designed and tested looks by illustrators and editors but for a small company with a minimal budget I think that’s the threat at this point.
Been a beta tester for AI art tools for over a year. I'm very excited for the future of media and communication aided by AI. Many people will find new forms and ways of expression, enjoyment and contemplation. However, it actually makes me more interested in my own photography. Photography, like playing an instrument, is an experience. AI cannot replace the total experience. It may offer something new but it is not a complete replacement for the photographic experience. That said, eventually certain types of personal photography and commercial photography may be replaced by AI tools. Challenge yourself, push the boundaries of your creativity. Or simply do not worry, and just enjoy taking photos.
I think the issue is that clients don't care about your photography experience, they care about cost and results. This is why the AI thing is causing so many people to freak out because they see possible revenues of income being taken away and their tools and experience no longer a necessary piece in the chain to providing that service anymore.
One recent trend is New Car Photography has been replaced by 3D computer models. This has gotten so advanced that even Video Ads on TV are using the 3D model and getting that perfect paint job with a perfect interior shot. It will keep evolving. And Yes in the beginning portrait painters thought they would be put out of business by photographers.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I've heard a few photographers say they only get a tiny fraction from stock images. It isn't anything you can really make money from. At most it is a bit of pocket change. The only people that really benefit from stock photography are the companies that run them, and those that save lots not having to hire a photographer. I think AI images could replace stock images for things like; images to decorate blogs and websites that don't need realism. Though they are getting better and better at creative photorealism. The really useful tools for me are the enlargers and object aware, though they still have a way to go as need to still tidy the images in PS. Of course I'm writing this 3 months after the video. It is hard to keep up with all the developments over the past few months. But I'm writing an essay so researching as much as possible. I have no doubt weeks after I have written my paper it will be out of date. But that doesn't really matter and have a due date so not much I can do about that. At present AI will, if anything, make photography more accessible, much like the mobile phone cameras. It introduces more people to the art and if anything their appreciation is introduced. Much like the paint by numbers images introduces people to painting and consider how colours work together to form shapes. If they enjoy it, it is a stepping stone into the art. Most of the people I have chatted to, that use the AI art generators, are artists that use it in their workflow. I know some like to troll the AI artists and I think that is mean. There is nothing worse than art snobs. The camera got attacked for years before people recognise it as a really useful tools. Of course you get your point and click types, in all areas of art. I'm not going to stop singing in the shower just because I'm not as good at whoever is currently at No.1. We are allowed to point and shoot, or scribble with paint, or play with the AIs. It is all an introduction and everyone has to start somewhere.
Thank you for the stimulating comments. I've drawn a parallel between AI in photography an CGI for movies. I think the comparison is apt. CGI has been around for awhile. Cinema historians will know how long. And even now I can still differentiate between CGI and video imagery. I think. I was eager to know what you had to say about this and believe I've been amply rewarded. Thanks again.
Very well put Ted. I am a photographer and that puts an end to the reasons why AI doesn't excite me at all. And your sentence at 0:54 where you say: You give the algorithm a series of props and it "spits out" images that match the criteria.... sums it up pretty well.. Spits out is what it does. Calling it "created art" is an insult.. As a technology it is awe inspiring but to use it to create so called images using data that has been used without the permission of millions of artists is treading into wrong path.. I do hope that there will soon be some lines drawn - both legal and ethical, to define how and where this so call art can be used..
Hi Ted - how would you react to Jeff Wall asking a program to output 'a river in vancouver in the style of Katsushika Hokusai Yejiri Station" and out pops 'A sudden Gust of Wind'. The art is in the question and thought as much as the image and process. Dismissing it seems a little like painters dismissing photography when it developed. Replacing painting = no, but another way of producing art = yes.
art is always a deep emotional process. so as ted mentioned people always will be creative as long as they will stay emotional and sensitive. I think ai can't replace that in terms of individual art expression. love your kind of support of photography as a wonderful art form, ted. thanks for that.
Great discussion. I actually think that art will most likely be the most aggressive in adopting AI because like you said art will reflect where we are in society. You only have to look at Warhol who was obsessed with the industrial production of commodities (he called his studio "the factory") and made art in a similar (cynical?) way. I find the "errors" in AI images to be fascinating and more than a little disturbing. Once perfected it may be that AI generated images may no longer hold their appeal as they seamlessly blend in with the "real" world. It's the unexpected, errors that get your attention. Love to see you do more on this topic!
Interesting take on AI. As a musician, you no doubt remember that the invention of drum machines was going to put drummers out of work. Obviously it didn't, but since non-drummers were programming them, they came up with beats a drummer would never have imagined. Eventually, drummers started taking ideas from this unusual programming. I can imagine AI photographs inspiring photographers to approach the art differently, in a similar symbiosis.
As developer and photographer, I constantly strip exif data from images as part of the performance optimization. We all do it. In fact some serves are configured to do this automatically as part of the request response. Case had no merit and photographer is overreaching with his media release. On the Ai front, I'm super excited about it. Whenever new tech comes out I'm always thinking about how to integrate into what am doing. People that worry are operating on fear. I always thought that photography is personal--in every sense of the word, therefore no machine can replace that connection. Ai could be a crutch you lean on but will not replace photography.
Photography means „paint with light“. These AI generated pictures come not from light, it‘s just software. So we need a new word for this (aigraph). It should be transparent for the viewer, what he is looking at.
A related topic -- I saw an article that mentioned there's an AI engine that can remove trademarks from images. I'm not particularly fond of putting a trademark on an image, but others do, often thinking they'll prevent illegal copies of their images. What's going to happen if others us this AI engine to remove trademarks?
I use AI as a tool to create art work. It's a tool like any software that I use. I use these tools, because I can create things that I never could. I don't have any other reason. I won't disclose how my artwork is created, or how I shot my photographs, because the way I do is my own technique. I just learned everything that I needed.
Valid points on creativity, and there is something to be said about deep emotions, struggles and stories that can only come from uniquely human experiences, which a non sentient algorithm is (thankfully) unable to replicate. I sold my photography gear (with the exception of film camera) and switched to filmmaking and got a degree in film production, not just because I am passionate about film, but also because I was seeking something challenging on the technical level. That being said, with the emergence of Ai I am definitely not going back to commercial photography having already come this far and having come to enjoy motion imaging a lot more as oppose to still. I still enjoy photography as a hobby time to time, and I like what you put out!
It's funny to see that AD intergation from this video is an example of how technology closes some niches where ppl used to have jobs. Just as with mentioned stock photos, 10+ years ago you typically needed a webmaster to get such website done, and now you have tool for DIY.
A couple of thoughts. Since Ansel Adams, there has been movement away from photography (in camera image) to imaging out of camera. Most of us know Ansel was a photoshop geek far before photoshop ever existed. In one of the biographies about him, Ansel tells the author that he worked on one single print for three days, busy dodging and burning. There is more imaging and photography today that there ever was in the past and it's only logical that massive changes in technology and procedures are going to occur. And these changes are going to affect some professionals in the marketplace. For example, a wedding photographer really can't be replaced by AI, however AI might be used to enhance the looks of a groom and bride much like portrait AI is being used now and in the past. But I will invent software. So lets have seniors of high schools and universities take a photo of themselves from the nipple up against a plain background. The photo could be taken on a phone or camera by friend, family, lover, enemy; no need for any professional work. That image can then be forwarded to the imaging department of wherever and input into the AI software. The appropriate cap and gown added, the appropriate background is added and the photograph is good to go. No need for a professional photographer.
Heck, I think for my sister back in the mid aughts we just used a point and shoot instead of a paid pro for senior pics. I think for the "standard" pics that were often required in high school there's never been a reason to need a pro for that. And TBH I can't think of people *wanting* to do those sorts of pics as a job. That's such a rote boring tedious job.
Consider an image created by AI compared to an image taken by a photographer and then drastically edited. Both result in what was wanted not what existed.
Referencing the photographer who sold his images through a resort or hotel organization with seemingly no initial restrictions ...and it got away from him. In my thoughts, if you throw everything to the wind and just collect the money, well, control of your images may well blow away, too.
The question is not if AI will kill photography. The question is why you photograph. For likes on instagram or for composing pictures using cameras, light, lenses just for the joy of photograpghy?
I'm not into AI, but I can relate to someone who has a great idea, but lacks the technical expertise, or possibility to travel to a specific place, but yet is able to create an image that represents his vision. It will not replace the "this happened at thi spoint in time" photos, and will surely change photography, put an end to entire photography genres the same way photography put an end to ilustrators of events, and digital put an end to darkrooms around the world for example. Great insight, and is making me think about it more in other areas. But I don't think I'll be using at all, I much prefer to load some TriX in my cameras and then spend time in the darkroom printing :-)
I think you have summed up the overall impact of AI pretty well, and I agree with your assertion. When I think of AI generated images versus "real" photographs, I like to use the comparison of equipment images used by KEH versus what you find on eBay. KEH uses images of equipment in very good condition as illustration only (duly noted on their webpage) whereas on eBay they are images of the actual item in question and many sellers state that the images are literally part of the description. So, is there a role for AI? Absolutely, but not where a genuine likeness of the subject in question is needed (think of evidence photos at crime scenes, etc.). You pointed out some great examples of a new building with a unique design that the architect needs to illustrate, or celebrity portraits. Of course AI would not be suitable for vacation photos since you want to capture the unique experience that you had. It seems to me the best fit for AI will be in the stock photography arena. The subject of the legitimacy of AI from a copyright point of view is entirely different story.
A thought on the copyright issue the photographer probably could not show any financial or reputation damages which is probably why the court did not take up the case. The photographer would have been smarter to have reached out to the company that paid him for the work and pointed out the mistake and give them the opportunity to correct it. Any reason to reach out to a past client is always a plus who knows they may have had more work to offer him!
We keep calling it AI photography. It is a computational illustration. Nothing about it is photographic. No camera, or capture device. No time considerations. No decisions are made based on anything photographic. It is an illustration created by predictability algorithms to produce computational output. That is not photography. It has not one crossover to photography. There are illustrators that can make nearly photographic-looking imagery... we do not call them photographs. To see people equate this with the challenges of art growing and new technology that collides with it is so sad. Lacking critical thought, one would say that it looks like a photograph, so it is a photograph. Language means stuff.
Every digital photograph is a computational illustration. Please don't get hang up by a particular presentation platform. The matter is that A.I. replaces human beings at every single stage you've outlined, not just as a picture mishmash generator on the internet. The only thing is lacking is a critical thought - in fact it doesn't have any thoughts - as it doesn't need it. It needs to produce results and that's what it does.
I wonder if people tried to ban paintbrushes in the same way that there is so much general arm waving about AI? Perhaps the guys who were really good at painting cave walls with their fingers got really shouty about the guy who picked out a lump of charcoal from the fire and found an easier way to draw ? I think it's just evolution, another creative process that people will use as they see fit. People don't like change, but change is a constant, embrace change and you have one less thing to stress about. I have used AI programmes to create images but soon went back to using my camera, it wasn't for me. But i am glad that there is another creative tool being developed for people who want to be creative.
I am a bit more concerned about the future of a few genres. In many cases, stock photography can be replaced by AI. The images will get a lot better in a few years. That might also affect some parts of the advertisement photography. At the same time, I think this will make a genuine photograph more valuable. It certainly not will kill photography s a hobby. (edited the missing NOT)
How would it kill photography as a hobby? If anything it would be the other way around... Companies would look to AI to replace photographers because of cost. I can't see a hobbyist thinking "I was going to go for a photo walk but instead decided to generate some AI images"
I'm surprised that you think it would kill the hobby. I would take your music metaphor and extend it to say thay even if AI music generation takes all the commercial recording and composition work, people will still play guitar for fun.
Unfortunately for all graphic designers, and any photographers involved in anything ancillary, AI is going to replace them completely. Or at least to 90%. As a marketing manager, instead of ringing up my favorite PR firm and making an appointment to discuss my new product campaign, I just key a couple of prompts into the AI image generator running on my PC, and get 6 images within seconds. The same goes for any texts or slogans, in this case I get them straight off Chat GPT. These types of revolutionary developments have been appearing all along. Wedding photographers have lost their trade, newspaper photographers have lost their trade, magazine photographers - oh well, the magazines themselves have gone. Almost everything connected with photography and photography based income has been blown to smithereens by smartphones already. And of course AI will create "new" stuff. To believe the opposite is either wistful thinking or simply naïve. Even human artists rely heavily on the creativity of their forerunners. This also affects hobby photographers. The tools for their pastime get more and more into a niche market position and subsequently more and more manufacturers will stop producing them.
If you're an art photographer who wants future generations to consider your work, you need to be concerned with providing those future audiences with a provenance showing your work is not digitally altered or the product of a computer.
@@stephenpiper5604 Well, I don't know. But I've thought about it and I'm persuaded that in the near future people will view *every image they see* as computationally generated/altered because the vast majority of images will be exactly that. What's more, those trillions of artificial images will be so artistically tuned that they will put to shame any of the photo illustrations people are making today. The only value our "pictures" will possess for people in the future will be to the extent that they are true representations of places and people in the past. For them to be regarded as that they will need to be able to show that they were not only actual pictures taken with a camera, but that they were not subsequently altered or manipulated. (It just so happens, I posted a video on this topic last week. It's my one and only video so shouldn't be too hard to find.)
@@MichaudYT ....so basically go back to film and keep the negatives in a vault. Nah, I am not doing that. But I do hope we would have enough good will as a collective to at least make A.I. generated output declared as such.
The landscape at 1:13 almost gave me a heart attack. I took an incredibly similar image in Iceland and had to check if it was stolen by the AI. I'm skeptical about the composition but the mountain is a different texture/shape. Still I choked for a moment.
If AI could be limited to producing truly original content from conception to end result, and be identifiable as AI, I'd have no issues or concerns with it. However, the lid is well and truly off Pandora's Box and I imagine that there'll be a lot of court cases relating to copyright infringement over the next several years.
It’ll be the biggest revolution in photography since it began. It will kill fashion, stock, product and fine art photography. And that’s no big loss. Maybe photogs will realise the medium was invented to capture the local, intimate and personal. Instagram ruined our taste where everything became synthetic and over processed. Photographers did this to themselves so that’s too bad. But lack of taste and chasing the Instagram aesthetic caused this. Galleries will be filled by AI images and photography work will diminish.
Love your content, Ted. Been a fan since your 35mm film development video (that was a while back!). I'm also a machine learning (AI) engineer and spend a lot of time in ethics meetings. Love my work, and I love photography. I work in cancer research and develop language models since we can't use OpenAI models for data privacy reasons that you touched upon (copyrights). Here's my 2 cents- models like Dall-e (image generation) or ChatGPT were never designed to replace human creativity. It only automates tedious and low-hanging tasks, and like all great technologies, it will replace those jobs, unfortunately. My guess is that, things like stock photography, short product videos or stenography will probably be replaced in 5-7 years. ChatGPT can write poetry but can never outwrite Tennyson or Dylan. Dall-e will definitely get a lot better, but there can only be one Ansel Adams. We can write the best cancer cell recognition (image recognition) model, but it will never replace an experienced Radiologist's scrupulous eyes. One day, probably. We are nowhere near it.
I've been into photography since 2003 and it was only two years in when I began hearing "this will kill photography," "photoshop this, photoshop that," "the new guys are undercutting us" etc. etc. And look! We are still here talking about it. If anything, I believe AI images will push the value of film photography even higher as did hand illustrations when photography came along.
I think the diffusion model latent space architecture under pinning the AI is surprisingly analagous to my creative process, at least when painting in terms of generated output being guided by higher level conceptual descriptions(latent space content), which evolves more fluid sub elements of composition harmoniously toward some aesthetic goal from prior artistic experience(diffusion). The AI has many levels of abstraction with associations to content, emotions, styles, aesthetics, technique, physical laws, meta knowledge of art beyond human understanding etc, so In many ways it is much "smarter" than average artist who has by human limitation a much more limited swathe of experience relatively speaking and it does it all a thousand to a million times faster ie one can curate a 1000+ possibilities in the same time take to "legitimately" create it human style to find things beyond limited human concept of what is suitable..
The instancy and the volumes it can output is intoxicating. It's not that it is "more creative" - it's just that, in human terms, it generates millennias of artistic legacies and evolves them into results in seconds. Those who think this is not going to affect their professional lifes are going to be surprised.
@@mack_solo True and it seems like the tip of an iceberg.. Additionally supply and demand will be completely reshaped when these AI alternatives start personalizing all art so that everyone can have a version of any output that is more deeply tailored to their own personal psychology than what any artist or photographer could manage.
excellent, like the little bit of history to put it in perspective, but having recently retired after 35 years as a pro advertising photographer, I can only say I'm happy I don't have to deal with Ai. Having come through the film/polaroid into digital transition, then the budget cuts due to Social Media eating away at the budgets, my gut feeling is the landscape (excuse the pun) is going to get rocky for commercial guys. These days, I spend more and more of my time in the darkroom, just for me. Incidentally, Squarespace is the best !
if anything, i think it will affect fine art photography (and illustration). i don't see how it can affect commercial photography. if you need a product, person, house, etc. photographed, you will need to hire a photographer. i think cell phone cameras have affected the hiring of photographers more than a.i.
I tend to disagree. You 'might' need a photographer to photograph the product but AI could very easily incorporate that photograph into whatever background / situation is required. There would be much less need for the photographer to incur travel / subsistence expenses to jet around the world to photograph in order to achieve the look required.
@@pauljenkin297 very true. if a person is looking for digital alterations or expensive compositing work, they coudl use ai. but to take the picture itself.. like a realtor might need, or a restaurant might need, or a fashion brand might need, they'd need a photographer.
Now that I have watched the entire video my question is when I send film out to be processed by a commercial company can they steal any of my photos or is there a law that prevents that from happening.
yes its already dead as we know it , but ask the same to a 12 year old & the answer will be something different . From the days of fine art painting portraits to selfies on an smart phone , photography has evolved & will keep evolving im sure
Maybe certain kind of photography such as stock and product. We are probably 1/2 a decade away from AI takeover wedding photography. But for people who do it as a hobby or for pleasure, AI means nothing except help in their workflow. Eventually, people shot photography will be much in demand. Reverse trend of some sort will happen in two to three decades.
How exactly could AI replace wedding photography? You need people on the ground taking photos at an event. You think in 5 years there will be robots doing that? Lol dummy.
@@joseph-the-seventh Well, Cannon released a small event camera recently. It's automatic. You just have to expand that with machine models around weddings and a couple of cameras coordinator. Also robot already exists, saw one in a kids birthday event taking pictures. It wasn't perfect, but worked good enough. Imagine the next five years.
@@rhonaldjr Interesting, but those things you mentioned will never replace a humans ability to move around environments with a camera quickly, assess and modify lighting, and most importantly interact with other humans and make them feel comfortable.
It may still be interesting to take a look on the internet at what is called the first AI art gallery in Amsterdam. It opened it's door about half a year ago. It surprised me I must admit.
Often times you'll see a TV commercial and on the bottom of the screen you'll see the statement "actor portrayal" of lets say a doctor or patient saying how great a medication is. I imagine a time where you'll see a statement at the bottom of the screen stating "AI generated actor portrayal"
I'm afraid Ted's video will not age well. Ai is already advancing exponentially as we speak. It will be perfected sooner than we wish to believe. (it's already replacing vast swaths of careers in multiple sectors.) Ai will not replace the intuitive creative DNA of humans (nothing could), but in the near future, there's no question it will effect photography, design and illustration as a means of making a living.... so if you love to create, by all means keep it up, but also be prepared for the unfortunate prospect that your creative impulse will not be able to put food on the table.
First, the term Unlimited use was his failure for accepting that it covered him, and frankly The Supreme Court is biased so what do, or did he expect. So, the object lesson here is never allow Unlimited unless you state to include the data they stripped or could in an effort to conform to a particular publication.
I was out of photography for about 25 years, then last year I bought a mirrorless Canon R10. Wow, the unnecessary idiot proof nonsense that is inside that camera is unbelievable, it is soooooooooooo complicated and annoying to use! So after a week i went out and bought an analog Olympus OM 10 camera. I am happy taking pictures again now!
This video is exactly why I refuse to use stock footage on any project, and actually, I won’t contribute to it either. No shade to anybody who uses it or contributes, but it’s just not my thing. If I’m telling a story, and I can’t go to India to get a shot of something in Auroville, I’m just gonna do what I can in my film creatively to tell that story. I’m not gonna download some shots from that city. But that’s just me. I remember when I was in the music business, and Acid Pro became something that people used, meaning suddenly you had all of these tracks that were completely finished, and you could just cut them together, to me that was really just being a DJ, not a musician, but it’s common practice now, people who use it are looked at as actual musicians, (no disrespect to DJ’s, but you’re not doing what Hendrix and Coltrane did. You’re using what they did to make what you’re making, which can be awesome, but it’s different) and so this is the world as it evolves. But I think watching your videos, you and I have similar perspective on this, and I know personally, I will continue to work as hard as I can to create my own art, even if it is to my own detriment, at least businesswise, but creatively, that decision will never be to my detriment. It will actually always add to my growth and evolution as an artist. Just as an aside, when somebody says they want an image in the style of somebody else, to me, that “somebody else” should get paid.
I think large companies who usually license images from Getty for example could decide to have a dedicated person create those needed images through Mid journey sites and alike. Ie. if there’s a story about a bear attack and they don’t have a photo of ‘that’ bear they will just create one. That’s where I see this going.
AI will not affect the person who loves photography as a hobby. On the commercial side AI will mean the following. We have a manager that thinks he is a creative. He doesn't listen or like what the creative department are advising him to do. He then uses AI to generate layouts and images. The results convince him he can do it all and he will also save money (which means he can pay himself more too). He bins the creative department. Skillsets will become devalued. Who needs to spend years learning stuff when anyone can bang out prompts and heypresto! This is a real threat I'm facing with my fellow colleagues and it's pretty scary.
Intuition is some kind of creativity status. And intuition it's an act resulting from experiences lived before in our life that flashing in a needed moment . So I really can't imagine what would be an AI reloaded and reloaded again with huge datas, metadatas, styles, proposals, past visioned imagery, faces... etcetera. Almost near a human intelligence... not just from one human being but of many!. A Blade Runner son. The asking for future is what kind of work we'll remain to do? I've been working in photography for 40 years and I'm agree to enjoy each moment shotting my camera or editing a picture that I guess my self its a nice photo to me at least. People next to come will answer some of that questions.
In the beginning I was pretty skeptical about AI generated "art" until I started experimenting with it myself. There is something interesting and strangely beautiful when you can turn your ideas in your head into something close to what you originally had envisioned and then make further adjustments. Sure this is lazy, but also in many ways a new possible medium of art so to speak if you even want to call it art. That being said I do see it affecting photography in the future, more specifically certain genres or niches like stock photography or product photography. Just like when digital came along it forced many people to either change with the times or lose jobs. It's important to still stand true to yourself and visions but also be willing to reinvent yourself in a way, and it will most likely also open new opportunities and the possibility of new jobs as well. I see this more as an ethical thing especially for purists where there is still a debate between film and digital photographers. Genres like photojournalism, documentary photography, wedding and portrait photography will always hold some importance and value, especially when heavy editing or manipulation is frowned upon or outright forbidden like in the case of photojournalism. I do see this technology improving significantly with time just as we do with others, the question will be for those who are actually impacted by it, will they be willing to adapt or make adjustments to their own craft to stay relevant and make a career or living.
The question of copyright from an ethics perspective pertains perfectly equally to AI trained on past art and photography students who learn from looking at past art. The only problem is scale, and that problem is more akin to the inability of massive numbers of photographers being unable to make a living on an increasingly obsolete technology. Art will always be art, and will always be subjectively valued.
My view of AI as it's been described in so many publications, ads, and yes TH-cam videos is that it adapts from millions of photos to "help" with processing, thereby allowing anyone to make an absolutely perfect average image.
Video did not kill the Film Stars. Film cameras continue to this day, and a lot of movies are still using it. Digital captures are transferred to film for distribution.
If photography is changing, so far it has mostly been due to the smartphone. People don't place much value on photographs any more - whether produced by a camera, smartphone, or AI. AI will become so ubiquitous that people will simply ignore photographs altogether, at least as art. Too bad, it shouldn't be that way, but most people don't see what went into making a great image.
We've been using advancements in technology, and more recently, AI in art and photography for a long time. Photoshop and Lightroom for editing, for example - the former has had AI features for years now. There is also AI in our mobile photo processing as well. New technologies have always come with the threat of breaking this, disrupting that or taking people's jobs. But people adapt and carry on. Photography didn't take away painters and DSLRs didn't take away film photography. Another point in the video is if there is any skill in writing the prompts. If you use Midjourney then it's very easy to get a 90% good image from it. From Stable Diffusion you'll struggle to get a 60% good image. It's that 10% and 40% extra work on the prompt that takes a good image to a great one. As an artist and photographer I don't have that skill. I'm not creative or articulate enough to write prompts to create great images. So to me there is definitely a skill to it. In fact if you have a photographic or artistic background you have the potential advantage of being able to write exactly what you want from any image.
And there is also the process of using your artist flair and knowledge to select the right image of the 4 to re-roll or the process of out/in-paint or edit the images once you've got close to what you want. This is an interesting view of AI art that touches on this: th-cam.com/video/5VNUXnMbvRM/w-d-xo.html There is a _process_ to creating AI art, like there is to creating other art and photography, it's just different.
When You learn Photography, You go grab the camera(Instamatic 44, I’m old) and start shooting. Perhaps you pick up a book of Stieglitz photography. And you start learning that style. Maybe you are leaning toward legerdemain. You choose card magic, and you like the style of Ed Marlo. You learn to paint by studying the masters of centuries past. This is how you learn. This is what AI is doing. If I want a picture of a beautiful sunset on the wall, I go take one and put it there. Not everyone has the need or desire to get up at 3:00 am to get to the perfect location for sunrise or 4:00 pm to get to the place for the perfect shot of sunset at 6:00pm (dinner time with the family). Art is a luxury. And you may have the rent coming up and that $5.00 Picture will just have to wait. I still want a unique picture, so this is a perfect use of AI in photography. Yes, AI will affect the business of photography, just a photography affected the paid portrait painter. ON the whole, the paid photography business is getting smaller every year, even while making changes to how the industry conducts the photography business. I do not feel my hobby will be affected. Love the show.
How AI-aided technology will disrupt these 'niche' photography industries: - Portrait photography. It won't take long before anyone can take a average photo with their cell phone and then use AI to boost the quality of this, put your face on different bodies, in different poses and then add an AI-aided filter to give it a professional feel or choose a style from popular classic portrait photographers. A digital artist/creator will still be required but less likely to go out and shoot this yourself. - Celebrity image especially endorsements. We have already seen Bruce Willis and Jean Claude Van Damme give their likeness away to be used in digital productions without their physical presence and this will popularise quickly, especially brands will like having full control of every aspect until the end from angle to pose using AI-face on whatever 3D body model. That way you can also insert products/services that aren't finished yet. - Architectural photography. Is the easiest in some ways to disrupt and to some extent is already being done with 3D scans of existing buildings giving essentially endless 3D choices for 'photography' to client. With a halfway decent 3D model or CAD layout any building with aid of AI can be texturised and then 'digitally composed' by a creator without actually visiting the finished building. It will also allow for much more dynamic angles and a much greater number of images and video outcomes. To be clear digital creators will be needed for most of the above in a professional context, and classic photographers with their experience will be best placed to take on some of those duties, but for sure photography on the ground will change radically.
One aspect of photography that won't be impacted by AI in the same way: Live event and documentary photography, both are obviously quite inherently about what has actually happened so AI can't be of much use to cut cost there.
And let's not forget marketing/advertising. Every new luxury car model will be pictured on some impossibly beautiful winding road, with a perfect sunset in the distance. Every performance car will be depicted at speed, with a glint of golden light on the driver's face. There's no end to the elimination of human effort (time, expense, equipment, etc.) in favor of computer creation, at least not from the perspective of the companies and agencies who currently pay people and crews to create images.
I'd say if I was a famous enough artist that people started using my name to get the "in style of" part done, I'd be pretty happy about it. I'm sure some people would feel differently. In the end though, I don't see it as very different from say genres in music. Take EDM, it has a plethora of very specific subgenres where the songs will start sounding VERY similar. That's just the way it is. I think it is a bit more problematic for painters than photographers as well, as painters really have a hand in (depending on style to a degree) every minute element of the art piece, while photography to varying extent usually replicates something, say nature or people. "Photo realism" per se is hard to fault AI for in terms of copyright. Sure there are exceptions in photography too, or hybrid art but I think this is something we just need to accept. The cat is out of the bag so to speak. I'm sure there are lots of photographers that are pissed that we have AF, digital imaging instead of film ("now people can just snap a 1000 photos and pick the best one") etc. We also should not forget that AI is constantly HELPING photographers, whether it is better algorithms to focus, set shutter speed, iso etc, based on subject, or improving the quality of photos we took, whether it is upscaling, fixing a bad focus issue etc.
I am not worried about AI as far as photography is concerned. But I am pretty sure that it can and will be used for more nefarious things.
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It have must been "weird" too, for oil painters. Someone pointing a box towards the model, pushing a button and having the box "paint" the portrait by itself. No drawing / painting skills required. History is repeating itself. It's sad when a photographer just doesn't get it.
My perspective as someone who trains AI for living (in real estate) is that we humans build up our personal experience by learning from other people's experiences. To a large extent, this is how AI is "trained". I think we will witness a time when it will be extremely difficult to differentiate between "organic" human art and artificial computer-generated art. This includes commercial. This sucks but it's what it's!
@@jaffarbh How would I know? That's the scary part about A.I. - it will serve exactly what asked for, optimised to perfection. It will question and undermine our perceptions of what is actually real.
Photography teacher here... It is threat for a certain class of Photography sellers, Tourism, Stock Images, Marketing, Product, but is not a threat to Photography itself...
Honestly, I don't feel threatened by AI in reference to photography, because photography is actually pretty fun as an activity unto itself. As for drawing and painting, I quit my art classes recently because learning about AI art killed the little motivation I had left. It seems like if someone just needs an image, AI can do the trick. However, photography not just illustrates, it also documents. There is value in seeing the actual subject rather than an illustration. Most of all, however, I like to shoot film specifically to open up space for more analog in my life, and only shooting with my camera is that going to happen.
Ted, I think a large portion of the population subscribes to the theory of quick and instant with little work. Recently an AI piece already won an art show. This is like a hard drive….its not if it will crash its when. This also reminds me of 2002-2004 when film was never going away and digital was fad. I recently did a green screen job. The customers all had a form of disability and using some mode of assistance to move. The green screen AI I used for the pull on the first pass was decent…trying to remove everything including wheelchairs. 650 pictures took 5 minutes. The AI system ran them about 500 times. I took less than 20 minutes and they were perfect. Like Deion Sanders to Colorado….AI is coming and it brought it’s luggage. All the people that loaded their images to social media and free sites and never thought to protect their work.
I'm really undecided on why this question comes up where these AI image generators got the datasets the algorithms were trained on. Sure, it was images from all over the internet, from famous artists, and less famous artists. But isn't that basically how learning works for humans as well? Or are photographers also paying licence fees to each famous artist who influenced their style?
@@mack_solo it matters to me if something is generated by humans versus machines, if something is as original as a person can make it, or is a machine is taking the works of many people to generate an image.
What will be interesting is the effect on wildlife photography. There will need to be a way to demonstrate that your picture is authentic and not just generated by AI and that you have actually recorded real animal behaviour. Imagine: 'lion in a forest juggling'!
If often wonder whether AI is built into the new mirrorless cameras.. I wonder whether the images are actually sharper and noise reduction is built in too.. When I first got into wildlife photography it was all about getting the best lens.. Today it's all about the camera body you have.. Which begs the question are the images we are getting optically sharper or is it software giving us digital sharpness?? If it's software then I presume the raw optical quality is of a lower standard and I would also presume a good quality lens would produce better results.. .. I find it interesting the high quality of images coming from fairly cheap lenses on the mirrorless system....
Most of my work as a photographer has NO art in it, just a service or package I do over and over again. I haven't, but using AI for editing my portrait would be ideal for an immediate turn around, i can charge the same without taking a day for retouch.
Not only do humans have an innate desire to create, but we also have innate unquenchable curiosity. Combined, these two human needs will always create opportunities for our species.
Pictures will still be taken -- they'll be the initial input to the AI, from which professional results will be produced, and it will not matter a whole lot how good the initial input was, how fine the camera was, or how refined the taker's skill was.
I think AI might push more photographers and artists to more analog ways of doing things. I've seen it with even the new auto focus on cameras, I've heard quite a few people think cameras are doing to much and they're moving to older platforms.
This same people spoke about the cars. Horses are future. You can't beat horsers ;) but yes, here are two different ends of stick. One is commercial and AI will change a lot. Senond end is fun, creative part, you can't replace by Ai. ;)
I dont care if other photographers take better pictures then me, I also don't care if AI can make better pictures then me. I enjoy the process of making photos for me.
I loved your post. I think the same, I don't care if other people are better than me. I just love taking pictures. And I love the pictures I take. For me, that's enough.
I agree, however, I would object strongly if AI software could trawl the web and cloud-based storage such as Adobe CC and use / profit from our photos. We buy the gear, travel to the location, buy / lease the post-production software, etc. To have some AI 'artist' type in a few commands and their software gain free access to our photos and get paid for their efforts seems totally unacceptable to me. This seems as much a debate about ethics and copyright as it is about whether AI will do away with photography as we know it.
For enthusiasts like you and me, that's all well and good. The issue Ted is discussing is whether AI advancements will affect pros: those who shoot commercially, art photographers who sell their prints, etc. For them, potential clients who use AI instead of hiring a real photographer or buying a real photograph represent lost income. It could be a big deal down the road for some pros.
Thank you for saying this. I also feel the same way and I don’t do much post editing because I am a realist and when I look back on a photo I know the photo is about 99.99% of what came out of the camera.
I agree with you! Just shoot pictures and enjoy the process. Technology will do what it does.
I imagine that artists back in the day were having a similar discussion about this new technology called photography and its impact on their art world. Landscape painters, portrait painters all had their concerns yet we still have artists that prefer to put a brush to canvas or pencil to a sketch pad. It is the joy and immense satisfaction of creating that fuels artists whether they are painters, sculptors or photographers. Speaking for myself as a non-professional photographer my joy on my walks or my travels is having camera in hand and capturing the best images possible in camera. AI or no AI has no relevance in my satisfaction and love of photography. AI may one day be able to spit out whatever your imagination can type out on a keyboard but it will never replace the mental and physical satisfaction of creating something by hand or capturing a real moment in time.
back in the day they were not having a similar discussion about a new technology, cos it was not ripping them off by copying and combining their work without a person or a group of people being behind it. Not only A.I. is a non-entity to have an argument with, it already holds a memory of someone elses work and is capable of spitting out derivatives ad nauseam. As a hobbyist I am not affected, but I can see professionals' livelyhoods, especially in commercial and abstract photography, being nagatively shaken up this in the near future.
Of course, artists love to paint and photographers love to take photos. That is not the point. The problem ist that 99% of them can no longer make a living based on their vocations.
@@simonpayne7994 @Mack S You don't think professions have lost jobs prior to AI? I remember growing up seeing photographers having their own storefronts all around town. Not much of that anymore as it doesn't require a lot of training to take great pictures anymore. Same goes for music industry and virtually everything else. In this day and age, you need to rise above it unfortunately if you want to make it. Also, let's face it, most people in the world have jobs to put food on the table, so while I am an artist at heart, I can't be crying too much about people not getting to make enough money in this area. There are far worse problems in the world as it is.
@@simonpayne7994 That argument can be said of any technology that replaces humans, or any new technology that supplants an older one. Adapt or die, so-to-speak.
@trekkeruss You are perfectly right - adapt or die. The problem, as I see it, is that many people will not be able to adapt, or, that on principle adaption is impossible. As long as it all just relates to jobs, and there are enough other jobs around, okay, I might not be able to keep up my standard of living, but at least I am not facing doomsday.
Along with computers and integrated circuits we got software into just about everything. Software, together with hundreds of bugs. Due to buggy software even your coffee machine may have to be "re-booted" now and again.
On the other hand, if you have to stop the motor and re-boot your automobile in the middle of a busy crossing, this is not funny any more.
The inherent problem is that today's software has become so complicated, that nobody can master its complexity any more.
AI is the next step to oblivion. In a software program you can achtually look for, find and successfully fix a bug.
In AI there is no program to look at. If something malfunctions, now and again, you do not know how or why it went wrong. All you can do is train it a bit more and hope for the best.
This could be the doomsday case.
As a hobby photographer AI has already had an impact, whether it is with software or in the cameras with autofocus. Both designed to help not replace the process of making a photo. What AI can never replace is the experience and feel of just being there when you press the shutter button.
Well said
the client don't care about ur feeling
@@carocompostindeed 😂 and here we also talked about prompt ai not the 'fixing ur photo ai' thats mean we not even need to took photo to create good photograph just choose words and tadaa.. not to mention prompt using data that really making copyright useless 😂
AI can and will replace literally any kind of photography, insofar as people who need those services elect to have it do so.
There may be plenty of hangers on (e.g., the people who still listen to vinyl) who prefer the human element - but eventually AI will 100% be able to generate anything someone wants, and arrive at perfection through iteration.
This really is just a fact. What it will mean for the industry is less certain, but the tech is undeniable.
I’m 80 and a lifelong photographer and am using AI seeded with my own images and pushing and pulling them around with the verbal modifiers. I’m getting output that really extends my ability to create images. Actually I’m into territory I never would have have experienced otherwise. So I don’t find it either scary or troubling but I do feel bit lazy when the AI throws up a real beauty so easily!
Hi Ted. I’m a mostly retired attorney as well as a life-long avid photographer. On the AI question, my first thought is that any commercial use of AI-manipulated art is ripe for legal challenges and that, as you pointed out, AI is necessarily based on all the information fed into the system (including existing, “real” artwork, i.e., copyright protected material). In that sense, it is not dissimilar to the current problem of people posting unauthorized copies of photos on the web. One of my workshop instructors some years back mentioned that his attorneys collect instances of unauthorized use of his work and make an annual sweep, sending demand letters to the wrongful users, resulting in a nice amount of passive income each year. On a related issue, the editorial use of computer generated images is similar to the issues surrounding the early use of digitally manipulated images in news stories. You probably remember that Newsweek published a cover photo from which one person’s image had been removed. Newsweek included a note that the cover was meant as a photo illustration rather than an actual record of what occurred. I think that any AI-generated “news” images should (at least ethically) be similarly noted, which means they would not likely supplant photographers’ real images.
As for the intellectual property matter (and I am not am IP lawyer), it is important to keep in mind that statutes are only one part of the matter. As you noted, the facts of s specific matter, as well as how they are presented (how the case is framed), the jurisdiction in which it is brought, and the previous case law are largely determinative of the outcome. An unsatisfactory result in one instance does not mean that the overarching issue is resolved. Unless the courts somehow decide that copyright protection no longer exists, it is hard to imagine that a company could freely publish AI artwork that was demonstrably based on protected material.
It’s all fascinating, from a technical, gee whiz standpoint as well as the legal ramifications, and, like most of us, I’m routing for the human side of the equation.
I'm betting that the big money on the tech side, along with the argument that the AI is just doing what humans do is going to go the AI way. The AI derivative is no more a derivative than a human one. I heard one person opine that for copyright "derivative work" is a specific term of art, and does not mean simply influenced by. Like you cannot copyright a "style", so just as a human can make a painting in the style of Rockwell and not break any laws, so can an AI. The other interesting thing however is that AI can't get copyright in it's creations - I think there has been at least one or two cases where only humans or specifically "persons" can get copyright (this was over a monkey taking it's own photograph after stealing a camera).
@@jamespulver3890 lol
Well, I'm sure AI will play a huge role moving forward, but personally I'd rather be loading another roll of delta 400...
I almost have to wonder if this isn't a more relevant question for illustrators than for photographers. I think very often what photographers sell pictures of is specific enough that Midjourney or any of the others can't generate them (like a particular product or person or building) just like is the case with stock images. On the other hand, these AI image generators can fulfill open-ended requirements pretty well. Midjourney might be able to generate logos for your small business where you would've hired a graphic designer, but it won't be able to generate a picture of the façade for the website (I think, tell me if I'm wrong).
100%
It can already do it, actually)
@@gon4a9 it needs to banned
I think more than ever it is important to print and show your work. I think we should come together as artists and keep our work off the internet. AI can’t pull from material it can’t get.
Agreed! I do art walks when I can. They’re very refreshing and empowering for an artist.
I make book covers. Many layers are needed for the work I do. I needed a very old map of the U.S., before the states were delineated, as a base layer for the cover. I looked on ebay, and map repros were available. But there were these decent jpegs, too. I still had to spend hours on that jpeg to clean it up. Yes, I could have bought the repro, but being paid 250 for a cover, 30 bucks for the map... But now, with Topaz Photo AI, I could have cleaned it up in one minute, screen grabbed the result on my large monitor, still using the demo mode of Topaz which has no expiration date. I'm amazed what it does to my old pocket camera 8 meg imagery. Sky noise is gone, edge detail excellent.
I agree with you, the journey to a photograph in which you plan travel and see the photograph and you have a camera to capture that image that is why I take photographs.
I think one thing that AI opens the gates to is actually, creating works that can be placed in a different era. Like giving access to a time that's not available anymore, and yet can be explored through what is know about that era. I think for abstract and maybe even landscape photography, AI will be able to offer a way of exploring these subjects and I'm interested in using it as such.
Despite all this talk about photography being art, I have always believed that, at its core, photography is rooted in documentation. This is not to say that photography is not artistic. But the one thing that no other creative medium can't do is show what things looked like, what happened at a certain point in time. This is the one thing AI can never do. Of course, it will be able to simulate (in other words: fake) things, but then it is not documentation anymore. And I think this is why photography will always be able to justify its existence, regardless of how good AI will become at creating images. And, of course, everything @Usuallyroamingrob wrote 45 minutes ago.
A tangent issue is the manipulation of the archival image to give intentional misreprentations.
Is for pic robbers and lazy who wants a buck for what other real photographer don
The fascination with Cartier-Bresson is not that you couldn't arrange items in a frame artificially like a painter. Neither is the fascination that AI can cut down the time a painter needed to milliseconds. The fascination is that he managed to find these arrangements in the real world and record them in fractions of a second with (often) interesting subject matter to top it all off. The only problem with AI is that it will become more difficult to tell fact from fiction. Other than that the fascination with real and good photography will remain the same.
It would be really helpful if there was software available to identify whether AI had been used to create the imagery. If it becomes so difficult to distinguish reality from fake, politicians and criminals could use it to pursue their own deviant agendas.
I Used to work with scanning and editing photos during five year's (as well as taking portraits etc).
1) The highest quality photos I ever scanned was a 8x10 contact prints that was >50 years old.
2) Another time I had the chance to digitise part of the portfolio of a Swedish photographer who made a living (in the 70's and 80's like Ted talked about) by shooting 4x5 photos of buildings, bridges, power station/generators etc built by Scanska (Swedish construction company).
3) Whenever I worked with a >75 year old glas negative I was impressed by the quality of the images.
4) Today we take 5,10 or 100 pictures per day (almost all of them crap). 40-50 years ago people had their portrait taken by professionals twice per year (or something).
I can only guess which photos will stand the test of time.
-For does of you who live in Stockholm, Sweden you might have heard of Uggla (släkt med Magnus Uggla, porträttfotonas kung på 50-60 talet, ateljé på Kungsgatan).
I rather have one good photo vs 100 bad ones!
5) l loved whenever someone wanted to digitize Kodak Chrome, haven't seen anything that beats those colours yet (maybe SIBA Chrome print's)
My point is not to get nostalgic and/or say film is better than digital (although nothing I have seen beats an 8x10).
What can be automised and what can't?
The worst photos to work with were always them Instagram filtered, pixeled, outright horrible pictures, AI digitally improved...
AI is at best a tool!
I haven't seen it work at any satisfactory level yet in serious photography!
-In the field of automated text there's also AI.
-I have recently picked up the habit to use an AI auto-generator to give semi-automatic answers to my girlfriend's angry text messages!
-I feed the AI her text and it spit's out a suggestion that I can use as a working start 33% of the time (with heavy editing).
Ie I think good photography will survive AI.
To recapitulate, the best images I worked with were >50 years old 8x10 (no problems with 14 extra fingers protruding from the Humerus).
2:50 Being a professionel photographer for 30+ years I’ve always supported technical evolution. On the other side Via my secondary activity as photography teacher for the past 15 years I saw the evolution of visual content. As we all know there’s a huuuuge load of daily visual content being spread around the globe and between people. It’s sad, but at the same tile stunning to see the younger generation X and Z use more visuals than words to express themselves. The need for photographic collages and montages was increasing immensely… hence the evolution in super easy/quick masking and selecting in all photo and video editing software. For the moment I don’t think the AI generated imaging will be a threat for photography. 10 years ago CGI was the photography killer number 1. But instead of killing photography, it pushed itself out of contention because product photography for instance got back to proper photography instead of CGI thanks to major photographic developments in editing software. What this AI generated imagery will cause is an extended way of expressing ideas and feelings that can be created “on the spot” and shared instantly. It will only benefit photography because of the obvious big quality difference. I could go on for a bit longer, but it’s an excellent item to share especially te subject on copyrights… who owns the AI generated image for instance if it’s created with visuals of other people, artists and visions 🤔🤔🤔 💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻 subject
I think this AI imaging is less of a threat to photography than it is for illustrators in the commercial field. Like if I was a concept artist for films or products I would be keeping a nervous eye on this AI imaging. I can imagine if you are designing, say, a pamphlet and you need some cartoony illustrations of people running or jumping, you could either pay an illustrator, pay less for some stock clip art image, or you could generate a unique version for free.
It’s this low creative commercial work that often acts as a starting point for many people in this field that I think is at risk. High-end stuff will always require some form of uniquely designed and tested looks by illustrators and editors but for a small company with a minimal budget I think that’s the threat at this point.
Been a beta tester for AI art tools for over a year. I'm very excited for the future of media and communication aided by AI. Many people will find new forms and ways of expression, enjoyment and contemplation. However, it actually makes me more interested in my own photography.
Photography, like playing an instrument, is an experience. AI cannot replace the total experience. It may offer something new but it is not a complete replacement for the photographic experience. That said, eventually certain types of personal photography and commercial photography may be replaced by AI tools.
Challenge yourself, push the boundaries of your creativity. Or simply do not worry, and just enjoy taking photos.
I think the issue is that clients don't care about your photography experience, they care about cost and results. This is why the AI thing is causing so many people to freak out because they see possible revenues of income being taken away and their tools and experience no longer a necessary piece in the chain to providing that service anymore.
One recent trend is New Car Photography has been replaced by 3D computer models. This has gotten so advanced that even Video Ads on TV are using the 3D model and getting that perfect paint job with a perfect interior shot. It will keep evolving. And Yes in the beginning portrait painters thought they would be put out of business by photographers.
Correct me if I'm wrong. I've heard a few photographers say they only get a tiny fraction from stock images. It isn't anything you can really make money from. At most it is a bit of pocket change. The only people that really benefit from stock photography are the companies that run them, and those that save lots not having to hire a photographer.
I think AI images could replace stock images for things like; images to decorate blogs and websites that don't need realism.
Though they are getting better and better at creative photorealism.
The really useful tools for me are the enlargers and object aware, though they still have a way to go as need to still tidy the images in PS.
Of course I'm writing this 3 months after the video. It is hard to keep up with all the developments over the past few months. But I'm writing an essay so researching as much as possible. I have no doubt weeks after I have written my paper it will be out of date. But that doesn't really matter and have a due date so not much I can do about that.
At present AI will, if anything, make photography more accessible, much like the mobile phone cameras. It introduces more people to the art and if anything their appreciation is introduced. Much like the paint by numbers images introduces people to painting and consider how colours work together to form shapes. If they enjoy it, it is a stepping stone into the art.
Most of the people I have chatted to, that use the AI art generators, are artists that use it in their workflow.
I know some like to troll the AI artists and I think that is mean. There is nothing worse than art snobs. The camera got attacked for years before people recognise it as a really useful tools. Of course you get your point and click types, in all areas of art. I'm not going to stop singing in the shower just because I'm not as good at whoever is currently at No.1. We are allowed to point and shoot, or scribble with paint, or play with the AIs. It is all an introduction and everyone has to start somewhere.
Thank you for the stimulating comments. I've drawn a parallel between AI in photography an CGI for movies. I think the comparison is apt. CGI has been around for awhile. Cinema historians will know how long. And even now I can still differentiate between CGI and video imagery. I think.
I was eager to know what you had to say about this and believe I've been amply rewarded. Thanks again.
My history teacher said in 1983 that, in his opinion, technology had reached a point where we were not going to see anything new in the future.
Very well put Ted. I am a photographer and that puts an end to the reasons why AI doesn't excite me at all. And your sentence at 0:54 where you say: You give the algorithm a series of props and it "spits out" images that match the criteria.... sums it up pretty well.. Spits out is what it does. Calling it "created art" is an insult.. As a technology it is awe inspiring but to use it to create so called images using data that has been used without the permission of millions of artists is treading into wrong path.. I do hope that there will soon be some lines drawn - both legal and ethical, to define how and where this so call art can be used..
Hi Ted - how would you react to Jeff Wall asking a program to output 'a river in vancouver in the style of Katsushika Hokusai Yejiri Station" and out pops 'A sudden Gust of Wind'. The art is in the question and thought as much as the image and process. Dismissing it seems a little like painters dismissing photography when it developed. Replacing painting = no, but another way of producing art = yes.
art is always a deep emotional process. so as ted mentioned people always will be creative as long as they will stay emotional and sensitive. I think ai can't replace that in terms of individual art expression. love your kind of support of photography as a wonderful art form, ted. thanks for that.
Great discussion. I actually think that art will most likely be the most aggressive in adopting AI because like you said art will reflect where we are in society. You only have to look at Warhol who was obsessed with the industrial production of commodities (he called his studio "the factory") and made art in a similar (cynical?) way. I find the "errors" in AI images to be fascinating and more than a little disturbing. Once perfected it may be that AI generated images may no longer hold their appeal as they seamlessly blend in with the "real" world. It's the unexpected, errors that get your attention. Love to see you do more on this topic!
Interesting take on AI. As a musician, you no doubt remember that the invention of drum machines was going to put drummers out of work. Obviously it didn't, but since non-drummers were programming them, they came up with beats a drummer would never have imagined. Eventually, drummers started taking ideas from this unusual programming. I can imagine AI photographs inspiring photographers to approach the art differently, in a similar symbiosis.
As developer and photographer, I constantly strip exif data from images as part of the performance optimization. We all do it. In fact some serves are configured to do this automatically as part of the request response. Case had no merit and photographer is overreaching with his media release.
On the Ai front, I'm super excited about it. Whenever new tech comes out I'm always thinking about how to integrate into what am doing. People that worry are operating on fear. I always thought that photography is personal--in every sense of the word, therefore no machine can replace that connection. Ai could be a crutch you lean on but will not replace photography.
At least I don't think AI will change my desire to take photos because to me it's kind of a meditation.
Photography means „paint with light“. These AI generated pictures come not from light, it‘s just software. So we need a new word for this (aigraph). It should be transparent for the viewer, what he is looking at.
A related topic -- I saw an article that mentioned there's an AI engine that can remove trademarks from images. I'm not particularly fond of putting a trademark on an image, but others do, often thinking they'll prevent illegal copies of their images. What's going to happen if others us this AI engine to remove trademarks?
I use AI as a tool to create art work. It's a tool like any software that I use. I use these tools, because I can create things that I never could. I don't have any other reason. I won't disclose how my artwork is created, or how I shot my photographs, because the way I do is my own technique. I just learned everything that I needed.
Valid points on creativity, and there is something to be said about deep emotions, struggles and stories that can only come from uniquely human experiences, which a non sentient algorithm is (thankfully) unable to replicate. I sold my photography gear (with the exception of film camera) and switched to filmmaking and got a degree in film production, not just because I am passionate about film, but also because I was seeking something challenging on the technical level. That being said, with the emergence of Ai I am definitely not going back to commercial photography having already come this far and having come to enjoy motion imaging a lot more as oppose to still. I still enjoy photography as a hobby time to time, and I like what you put out!
Absolutely spot on, it may disrupt the business of photography a little, as did digital, but not the art.
By the way, like the beard.
It's funny to see that AD intergation from this video is an example of how technology closes some niches where ppl used to have jobs. Just as with mentioned stock photos, 10+ years ago you typically needed a webmaster to get such website done, and now you have tool for DIY.
A couple of thoughts. Since Ansel Adams, there has been movement away from photography (in camera image) to imaging out of camera. Most of us know Ansel was a photoshop geek far before photoshop ever existed. In one of the biographies about him, Ansel tells the author that he worked on one single print for three days, busy dodging and burning. There is more imaging and photography today that there ever was in the past and it's only logical that massive changes in technology and procedures are going to occur. And these changes are going to affect some professionals in the marketplace. For example, a wedding photographer really can't be replaced by AI, however AI might be used to enhance the looks of a groom and bride much like portrait AI is being used now and in the past. But I will invent software. So lets have seniors of high schools and universities take a photo of themselves from the nipple up against a plain background. The photo could be taken on a phone or camera by friend, family, lover, enemy; no need for any professional work. That image can then be forwarded to the imaging department of wherever and input into the AI software. The appropriate cap and gown added, the appropriate background is added and the photograph is good to go. No need for a professional photographer.
Heck, I think for my sister back in the mid aughts we just used a point and shoot instead of a paid pro for senior pics. I think for the "standard" pics that were often required in high school there's never been a reason to need a pro for that. And TBH I can't think of people *wanting* to do those sorts of pics as a job. That's such a rote boring tedious job.
Consider an image created by AI compared to an image taken by a photographer and then drastically edited. Both result in what was wanted not what existed.
Referencing the photographer who sold his images through a resort or hotel organization with seemingly no initial restrictions ...and it got away from him. In my thoughts, if you throw everything to the wind and just collect the money, well, control of your images may well blow away, too.
The question is not if AI will kill photography. The question is why you photograph. For likes on instagram or for composing pictures using cameras, light, lenses just for the joy of photograpghy?
What is this cotton fabric called? Of this beautiful shirt?
I'm not into AI, but I can relate to someone who has a great idea, but lacks the technical expertise, or possibility to travel to a specific place, but yet is able to create an image that represents his vision. It will not replace the "this happened at thi spoint in time" photos, and will surely change photography, put an end to entire photography genres the same way photography put an end to ilustrators of events, and digital put an end to darkrooms around the world for example.
Great insight, and is making me think about it more in other areas.
But I don't think I'll be using at all, I much prefer to load some TriX in my cameras and then spend time in the darkroom printing :-)
I think you have summed up the overall impact of AI pretty well, and I agree with your assertion. When I think of AI generated images versus "real" photographs, I like to use the comparison of equipment images used by KEH versus what you find on eBay. KEH uses images of equipment in very good condition as illustration only (duly noted on their webpage) whereas on eBay they are images of the actual item in question and many sellers state that the images are literally part of the description. So, is there a role for AI? Absolutely, but not where a genuine likeness of the subject in question is needed (think of evidence photos at crime scenes, etc.). You pointed out some great examples of a new building with a unique design that the architect needs to illustrate, or celebrity portraits. Of course AI would not be suitable for vacation photos since you want to capture the unique experience that you had. It seems to me the best fit for AI will be in the stock photography arena. The subject of the legitimacy of AI from a copyright point of view is entirely different story.
A thought on the copyright issue the photographer probably could not show any financial or reputation damages which is probably why the court did not take up the case. The photographer would have been smarter to have reached out to the company that paid him for the work and pointed out the mistake and give them the opportunity to correct it. Any reason to reach out to a past client is always a plus who knows they may have had more work to offer him!
We keep calling it AI photography.
It is a computational illustration.
Nothing about it is photographic.
No camera, or capture device.
No time considerations.
No decisions are made based on anything photographic.
It is an illustration created by predictability algorithms to produce computational output.
That is not photography.
It has not one crossover to photography.
There are illustrators that can make nearly photographic-looking imagery... we do not call them photographs.
To see people equate this with the challenges of art growing and new technology that collides with it is so sad.
Lacking critical thought, one would say that it looks like a photograph, so it is a photograph.
Language means stuff.
Every digital photograph is a computational illustration. Please don't get hang up by a particular presentation platform. The matter is that A.I. replaces human beings at every single stage you've outlined, not just as a picture mishmash generator on the internet. The only thing is lacking is a critical thought - in fact it doesn't have any thoughts - as it doesn't need it. It needs to produce results and that's what it does.
I wonder if people tried to ban paintbrushes in the same way that there is so much general arm waving about AI? Perhaps the guys who were really good at painting cave walls with their fingers got really shouty about the guy who picked out a lump of charcoal from the fire and found an easier way to draw ? I think it's just evolution, another creative process that people will use as they see fit. People don't like change, but change is a constant, embrace change and you have one less thing to stress about. I have used AI programmes to create images but soon went back to using my camera, it wasn't for me. But i am glad that there is another creative tool being developed for people who want to be creative.
I am a bit more concerned about the future of a few genres. In many cases, stock photography can be replaced by AI. The images will get a lot better in a few years. That might also affect some parts of the advertisement photography. At the same time, I think this will make a genuine photograph more valuable. It certainly not will kill photography s a hobby. (edited the missing NOT)
How would it kill photography as a hobby? If anything it would be the other way around... Companies would look to AI to replace photographers because of cost. I can't see a hobbyist thinking "I was going to go for a photo walk but instead decided to generate some AI images"
I'm surprised that you think it would kill the hobby. I would take your music metaphor and extend it to say thay even if AI music generation takes all the commercial recording and composition work, people will still play guitar for fun.
@@EduardoVelezIII Sorry about my mistake. There is a word not missing. My bad.
@@ForsgardPeter Oh I see! Thank you for sharing your thoughts
Unfortunately for all graphic designers, and any photographers involved in anything ancillary, AI is going to replace them completely. Or at least to 90%. As a marketing manager, instead of ringing up my favorite PR firm and making an appointment to discuss my new product campaign, I just key a couple of prompts into the AI image generator running on my PC, and get 6 images within seconds. The same goes for any texts or slogans, in this case I get them straight off Chat GPT.
These types of revolutionary developments have been appearing all along. Wedding photographers have lost their trade, newspaper photographers have lost their trade, magazine photographers - oh well, the magazines themselves have gone. Almost everything connected with photography and photography based income has been blown to smithereens by smartphones already.
And of course AI will create "new" stuff. To believe the opposite is either wistful thinking or simply naïve. Even human artists rely heavily on the creativity of their forerunners.
This also affects hobby photographers. The tools for their pastime get more and more into a niche market position and subsequently more and more manufacturers will stop producing them.
If you're an art photographer who wants future generations to consider your work, you need to be concerned with providing those future audiences with a provenance showing your work is not digitally altered or the product of a computer.
How do you know that?
@@stephenpiper5604 Well, I don't know. But I've thought about it and I'm persuaded that in the near future people will view *every image they see* as computationally generated/altered because the vast majority of images will be exactly that. What's more, those trillions of artificial images will be so artistically tuned that they will put to shame any of the photo illustrations people are making today. The only value our "pictures" will possess for people in the future will be to the extent that they are true representations of places and people in the past. For them to be regarded as that they will need to be able to show that they were not only actual pictures taken with a camera, but that they were not subsequently altered or manipulated.
(It just so happens, I posted a video on this topic last week. It's my one and only video so shouldn't be too hard to find.)
@@MichaudYT ....so basically go back to film and keep the negatives in a vault. Nah, I am not doing that. But I do hope we would have enough good will as a collective to at least make A.I. generated output declared as such.
The landscape at 1:13 almost gave me a heart attack. I took an incredibly similar image in Iceland and had to check if it was stolen by the AI. I'm skeptical about the composition but the mountain is a different texture/shape. Still I choked for a moment.
it looks like a very famous photo by Ansel Adams to me
@@84paratize I googled and found the image you are likely referring to. I see what you mean.
If AI could be limited to producing truly original content from conception to end result, and be identifiable as AI, I'd have no issues or concerns with it. However, the lid is well and truly off Pandora's Box and I imagine that there'll be a lot of court cases relating to copyright infringement over the next several years.
@@michaelmoss2901 yup, what I thought as well...
@@84paratize yes
It’ll be the biggest revolution in photography since it began. It will kill fashion, stock, product and fine art photography. And that’s no big loss. Maybe photogs will realise the medium was invented to capture the local, intimate and personal. Instagram ruined our taste where everything became synthetic and over processed. Photographers did this to themselves so that’s too bad. But lack of taste and chasing the Instagram aesthetic caused this. Galleries will be filled by AI images and photography work will diminish.
Love your content, Ted. Been a fan since your 35mm film development video (that was a while back!). I'm also a machine learning (AI) engineer and spend a lot of time in ethics meetings. Love my work, and I love photography. I work in cancer research and develop language models since we can't use OpenAI models for data privacy reasons that you touched upon (copyrights). Here's my 2 cents- models like Dall-e (image generation) or ChatGPT were never designed to replace human creativity. It only automates tedious and low-hanging tasks, and like all great technologies, it will replace those jobs, unfortunately. My guess is that, things like stock photography, short product videos or stenography will probably be replaced in 5-7 years. ChatGPT can write poetry but can never outwrite Tennyson or Dylan. Dall-e will definitely get a lot better, but there can only be one Ansel Adams. We can write the best cancer cell recognition (image recognition) model, but it will never replace an experienced Radiologist's scrupulous eyes. One day, probably. We are nowhere near it.
I've been into photography since 2003 and it was only two years in when I began hearing "this will kill photography," "photoshop this, photoshop that," "the new guys are undercutting us" etc. etc.
And look! We are still here talking about it.
If anything, I believe AI images will push the value of film photography even higher as did hand illustrations when photography came along.
I think the diffusion model latent space architecture under pinning the AI is surprisingly analagous to my creative process, at least when painting in terms of generated output being guided by higher level conceptual descriptions(latent space content), which evolves more fluid sub elements of composition harmoniously toward some aesthetic goal from prior artistic experience(diffusion). The AI has many levels of abstraction with associations to content, emotions, styles, aesthetics, technique, physical laws, meta knowledge of art beyond human understanding etc, so In many ways it is much "smarter" than average artist who has by human limitation a much more limited swathe of experience relatively speaking and it does it all a thousand to a million times faster ie one can curate a 1000+ possibilities in the same time take to "legitimately" create it human style to find things beyond limited human concept of what is suitable..
The instancy and the volumes it can output is intoxicating. It's not that it is "more creative" - it's just that, in human terms, it generates millennias of artistic legacies and evolves them into results in seconds. Those who think this is not going to affect their professional lifes are going to be surprised.
@@mack_solo True and it seems like the tip of an iceberg.. Additionally supply and demand will be completely reshaped when these AI alternatives start personalizing all art so that everyone can have a version of any output that is more deeply tailored to their own personal psychology than what any artist or photographer could manage.
Nice choice of background music for your Squarespace promo!
excellent, like the little bit of history to put it in perspective, but having recently retired after 35 years as a pro advertising photographer, I can only say I'm happy I don't have to deal with Ai. Having come through the film/polaroid into digital transition, then the budget cuts due to Social Media eating away at the budgets, my gut feeling is the landscape (excuse the pun) is going to get rocky for commercial guys. These days, I spend more and more of my time in the darkroom, just for me.
Incidentally, Squarespace is the best !
if anything, i think it will affect fine art photography (and illustration). i don't see how it can affect commercial photography. if you need a product, person, house, etc. photographed, you will need to hire a photographer. i think cell phone cameras have affected the hiring of photographers more than a.i.
I tend to disagree. You 'might' need a photographer to photograph the product but AI could very easily incorporate that photograph into whatever background / situation is required. There would be much less need for the photographer to incur travel / subsistence expenses to jet around the world to photograph in order to achieve the look required.
@@pauljenkin297 very true. if a person is looking for digital alterations or expensive compositing work, they coudl use ai. but to take the picture itself.. like a realtor might need, or a restaurant might need, or a fashion brand might need, they'd need a photographer.
Now that I have watched the entire video my question is when I send film out to be processed by a commercial company can they steal any of my photos or is there a law that prevents that from happening.
yes its already dead as we know it , but ask the same to a 12 year old & the answer will be something different . From the days of fine art painting portraits to selfies on an smart phone , photography has evolved & will keep evolving im sure
Maybe certain kind of photography such as stock and product. We are probably 1/2 a decade away from AI takeover wedding photography.
But for people who do it as a hobby or for pleasure, AI means nothing except help in their workflow.
Eventually, people shot photography will be much in demand. Reverse trend of some sort will happen in two to three decades.
How exactly could AI replace wedding photography? You need people on the ground taking photos at an event. You think in 5 years there will be robots doing that? Lol dummy.
@@joseph-the-seventh Well, Cannon released a small event camera recently. It's automatic. You just have to expand that with machine models around weddings and a couple of cameras coordinator. Also robot already exists, saw one in a kids birthday event taking pictures. It wasn't perfect, but worked good enough. Imagine the next five years.
@@rhonaldjr Interesting, but those things you mentioned will never replace a humans ability to move around environments with a camera quickly, assess and modify lighting, and most importantly interact with other humans and make them feel comfortable.
@@joseph-the-seventh Probably true, but with the next generation being more comfortable with the machines than human beings, it's all possible
Man, you've got a gift for gab, dude! Incredibly well-spoken! Enjoyed it.
It may still be interesting to take a look on the internet at what is called the first AI art gallery in Amsterdam. It opened it's door about half a year ago. It surprised me I must admit.
Often times you'll see a TV commercial and on the bottom of the screen you'll see the statement "actor portrayal" of lets say a doctor or patient saying how great a medication is. I imagine a time where you'll see a statement at the bottom of the screen stating "AI generated actor portrayal"
I'm afraid Ted's video will not age well. Ai is already advancing exponentially as we speak. It will be perfected sooner than we wish to believe. (it's already replacing vast swaths of careers in multiple sectors.) Ai will not replace the intuitive creative DNA of humans (nothing could), but in the near future, there's no question it will effect photography, design and illustration as a means of making a living.... so if you love to create, by all means keep it up, but also be prepared for the unfortunate prospect that your creative impulse will not be able to put food on the table.
First, the term Unlimited use was his failure for accepting that it covered him, and frankly The Supreme Court is biased so what do, or did he expect. So, the object lesson here is never allow Unlimited unless you state to include the data they stripped or could in an effort to conform to a particular publication.
I was out of photography for about 25 years, then last year I bought a mirrorless Canon R10. Wow, the unnecessary idiot proof nonsense that is inside that camera is unbelievable, it is soooooooooooo complicated and annoying to use! So after a week i went out and bought an analog Olympus OM 10 camera. I am happy taking pictures again now!
This video is exactly why I refuse to use stock footage on any project, and actually, I won’t contribute to it either. No shade to anybody who uses it or contributes, but it’s just not my thing. If I’m telling a story, and I can’t go to India to get a shot of something in Auroville, I’m just gonna do what I can in my film creatively to tell that story. I’m not gonna download some shots from that city. But that’s just me. I remember when I was in the music business, and Acid Pro became something that people used, meaning suddenly you had all of these tracks that were completely finished, and you could just cut them together, to me that was really just being a DJ, not a musician, but it’s common practice now, people who use it are looked at as actual musicians, (no disrespect to DJ’s, but you’re not doing what Hendrix and Coltrane did. You’re using what they did to make what you’re making, which can be awesome, but it’s different) and so this is the world as it evolves. But I think watching your videos, you and I have similar perspective on this, and I know personally, I will continue to work as hard as I can to create my own art, even if it is to my own detriment, at least businesswise, but creatively, that decision will never be to my detriment. It will actually always add to my growth and evolution as an artist. Just as an aside, when somebody says they want an image in the style of somebody else, to me, that “somebody else” should get paid.
I think large companies who usually license images from Getty for example could decide to have a dedicated person create those needed images through Mid journey sites and alike. Ie. if there’s a story about a bear attack and they don’t have a photo of ‘that’ bear they will just create one. That’s where I see this going.
Interesting to see Getty images are suing mid journey and a few other Ai companies for copyright
Good. I hope they win. No problem with AI, per-se, but ripping off photographers (amateur or professional) is dead wrong, in my opinion.
AI will not affect the person who loves photography as a hobby. On the commercial side AI will mean the following. We have a manager that thinks he is a creative. He doesn't listen or like what the creative department are advising him to do. He then uses AI to generate layouts and images. The results convince him he can do it all and he will also save money (which means he can pay himself more too). He bins the creative department. Skillsets will become devalued. Who needs to spend years learning stuff when anyone can bang out prompts and heypresto! This is a real threat I'm facing with my fellow colleagues and it's pretty scary.
It should be called “Artificial Low Intelligence.”
Intuition is some kind of creativity status. And intuition it's an act resulting from experiences lived before in our life that flashing in a needed moment . So I really can't imagine what would be an AI reloaded and reloaded again with huge datas, metadatas, styles, proposals, past visioned imagery, faces... etcetera. Almost near a human intelligence... not just from one human being but of many!. A Blade Runner son. The asking for future is what kind of work we'll remain to do? I've been working in photography for 40 years and I'm agree to enjoy each moment shotting my camera or editing a picture that I guess my self its a nice photo to me at least. People next to come will answer some of that questions.
Happy New Year Ted 2023 thanks for many years of The Art of Photography
In the beginning I was pretty skeptical about AI generated "art" until I started experimenting with it myself. There is something interesting and strangely beautiful when you can turn your ideas in your head into something close to what you originally had envisioned and then make further adjustments. Sure this is lazy, but also in many ways a new possible medium of art so to speak if you even want to call it art. That being said I do see it affecting photography in the future, more specifically certain genres or niches like stock photography or product photography. Just like when digital came along it forced many people to either change with the times or lose jobs. It's important to still stand true to yourself and visions but also be willing to reinvent yourself in a way, and it will most likely also open new opportunities and the possibility of new jobs as well. I see this more as an ethical thing especially for purists where there is still a debate between film and digital photographers. Genres like photojournalism, documentary photography, wedding and portrait photography will always hold some importance and value, especially when heavy editing or manipulation is frowned upon or outright forbidden like in the case of photojournalism. I do see this technology improving significantly with time just as we do with others, the question will be for those who are actually impacted by it, will they be willing to adapt or make adjustments to their own craft to stay relevant and make a career or living.
The question of copyright from an ethics perspective pertains perfectly equally to AI trained on past art and photography students who learn from looking at past art. The only problem is scale, and that problem is more akin to the inability of massive numbers of photographers being unable to make a living on an increasingly obsolete technology. Art will always be art, and will always be subjectively valued.
My view of AI as it's been described in so many publications, ads, and yes TH-cam videos is that it adapts from millions of photos to "help" with processing, thereby allowing anyone to make an absolutely perfect average image.
Video did not kill the Film Stars. Film cameras continue to this day, and a lot of movies are still using it. Digital captures are transferred to film for distribution.
If photography is changing, so far it has mostly been due to the smartphone. People don't place much value on photographs any more - whether produced by a camera, smartphone, or AI. AI will become so ubiquitous that people will simply ignore photographs altogether, at least as art. Too bad, it shouldn't be that way, but most people don't see what went into making a great image.
We've been using advancements in technology, and more recently, AI in art and photography for a long time. Photoshop and Lightroom for editing, for example - the former has had AI features for years now. There is also AI in our mobile photo processing as well. New technologies have always come with the threat of breaking this, disrupting that or taking people's jobs. But people adapt and carry on. Photography didn't take away painters and DSLRs didn't take away film photography.
Another point in the video is if there is any skill in writing the prompts. If you use Midjourney then it's very easy to get a 90% good image from it. From Stable Diffusion you'll struggle to get a 60% good image. It's that 10% and 40% extra work on the prompt that takes a good image to a great one. As an artist and photographer I don't have that skill. I'm not creative or articulate enough to write prompts to create great images. So to me there is definitely a skill to it. In fact if you have a photographic or artistic background you have the potential advantage of being able to write exactly what you want from any image.
And there is also the process of using your artist flair and knowledge to select the right image of the 4 to re-roll or the process of out/in-paint or edit the images once you've got close to what you want. This is an interesting view of AI art that touches on this: th-cam.com/video/5VNUXnMbvRM/w-d-xo.html There is a _process_ to creating AI art, like there is to creating other art and photography, it's just different.
When You learn Photography, You go grab the camera(Instamatic 44, I’m old) and start shooting. Perhaps you pick up a book of Stieglitz photography. And you start learning that style. Maybe you are leaning toward legerdemain. You choose card magic, and you like the style of Ed Marlo. You learn to paint by studying the masters of centuries past. This is how you learn. This is what AI is doing. If I want a picture of a beautiful sunset on the wall, I go take one and put it there. Not everyone has the need or desire to get up at 3:00 am to get to the perfect location for sunrise or 4:00 pm to get to the place for the perfect shot of sunset at 6:00pm (dinner time with the family). Art is a luxury. And you may have the rent coming up and that $5.00 Picture will just have to wait. I still want a unique picture, so this is a perfect use of AI in photography. Yes, AI will affect the business of photography, just a photography affected the paid portrait painter. ON the whole, the paid photography business is getting smaller every year, even while making changes to how the industry conducts the photography business. I do not feel my hobby will be affected. Love the show.
Just because AI doesnt do perfect photos now, doesnt mean it wont do it in the near future.
How AI-aided technology will disrupt these 'niche' photography industries:
- Portrait photography. It won't take long before anyone can take a average photo with their cell phone and then use AI to boost the quality of this, put your face on different bodies, in different poses and then add an AI-aided filter to give it a professional feel or choose a style from popular classic portrait photographers. A digital artist/creator will still be required but less likely to go out and shoot this yourself.
- Celebrity image especially endorsements. We have already seen Bruce Willis and Jean Claude Van Damme give their likeness away to be used in digital productions without their physical presence and this will popularise quickly, especially brands will like having full control of every aspect until the end from angle to pose using AI-face on whatever 3D body model. That way you can also insert products/services that aren't finished yet.
- Architectural photography. Is the easiest in some ways to disrupt and to some extent is already being done with 3D scans of existing buildings giving essentially endless 3D choices for 'photography' to client. With a halfway decent 3D model or CAD layout any building with aid of AI can be texturised and then 'digitally composed' by a creator without actually visiting the finished building. It will also allow for much more dynamic angles and a much greater number of images and video outcomes.
To be clear digital creators will be needed for most of the above in a professional context, and classic photographers with their experience will be best placed to take on some of those duties, but for sure photography on the ground will change radically.
One aspect of photography that won't be impacted by AI in the same way: Live event and documentary photography, both are obviously quite inherently about what has actually happened so AI can't be of much use to cut cost there.
And let's not forget marketing/advertising. Every new luxury car model will be pictured on some impossibly beautiful winding road, with a perfect sunset in the distance. Every performance car will be depicted at speed, with a glint of golden light on the driver's face. There's no end to the elimination of human effort (time, expense, equipment, etc.) in favor of computer creation, at least not from the perspective of the companies and agencies who currently pay people and crews to create images.
I'd say if I was a famous enough artist that people started using my name to get the "in style of" part done, I'd be pretty happy about it. I'm sure some people would feel differently. In the end though, I don't see it as very different from say genres in music. Take EDM, it has a plethora of very specific subgenres where the songs will start sounding VERY similar. That's just the way it is. I think it is a bit more problematic for painters than photographers as well, as painters really have a hand in (depending on style to a degree) every minute element of the art piece, while photography to varying extent usually replicates something, say nature or people. "Photo realism" per se is hard to fault AI for in terms of copyright. Sure there are exceptions in photography too, or hybrid art but I think this is something we just need to accept. The cat is out of the bag so to speak. I'm sure there are lots of photographers that are pissed that we have AF, digital imaging instead of film ("now people can just snap a 1000 photos and pick the best one") etc. We also should not forget that AI is constantly HELPING photographers, whether it is better algorithms to focus, set shutter speed, iso etc, based on subject, or improving the quality of photos we took, whether it is upscaling, fixing a bad focus issue etc.
I am not worried about AI as far as photography is concerned. But I am pretty sure that it can and will be used for more nefarious things.
It have must been "weird" too, for oil painters. Someone pointing a box towards the model, pushing a button and having the box "paint" the portrait by itself. No drawing / painting skills required.
History is repeating itself. It's sad when a photographer just doesn't get it.
My perspective as someone who trains AI for living (in real estate) is that we humans build up our personal experience by learning from other people's experiences. To a large extent, this is how AI is "trained". I think we will witness a time when it will be extremely difficult to differentiate between "organic" human art and artificial computer-generated art. This includes commercial. This sucks but it's what it's!
I should've added that organic art will always has it's value. A perfect replica of the Mona Lisa doesn't worth anything compared to the real one!
@@jaffarbh How would I know? That's the scary part about A.I. - it will serve exactly what asked for, optimised to perfection. It will question and undermine our perceptions of what is actually real.
It can only up the game for snappers but as Thulsa Doom says, "What is steel compared to the hand that wields it?" :)
Photography teacher here... It is threat for a certain class of Photography sellers, Tourism, Stock Images, Marketing, Product, but is not a threat to Photography itself...
Honestly, I don't feel threatened by AI in reference to photography, because photography is actually pretty fun as an activity unto itself. As for drawing and painting, I quit my art classes recently because learning about AI art killed the little motivation I had left. It seems like if someone just needs an image, AI can do the trick. However, photography not just illustrates, it also documents. There is value in seeing the actual subject rather than an illustration. Most of all, however, I like to shoot film specifically to open up space for more analog in my life, and only shooting with my camera is that going to happen.
Stock images were cheaper but we lost authenticity in the process because the images no longer reflected the unicity of each business.
Ted, I think a large portion of the population subscribes to the theory of quick and instant with little work. Recently an AI piece already won an art show. This is like a hard drive….its not if it will crash its when.
This also reminds me of 2002-2004 when film was never going away and digital was fad.
I recently did a green screen job. The customers all had a form of disability and using some mode of assistance to move. The green screen AI I used for the pull on the first pass was decent…trying to remove everything including wheelchairs. 650 pictures took 5 minutes. The AI system ran them about 500 times. I took less than 20 minutes and they were perfect. Like Deion Sanders to Colorado….AI is coming and it brought it’s luggage. All the people that loaded their images to social media and free sites and never thought to protect their work.
I'm really undecided on why this question comes up where these AI image generators got the datasets the algorithms were trained on. Sure, it was images from all over the internet, from famous artists, and less famous artists. But isn't that basically how learning works for humans as well? Or are photographers also paying licence fees to each famous artist who influenced their style?
Let’s pay attention to definitions. Person with camera vs computer generated or aided imagery?
in a digital domain there is no difference - it's all bits and pixels. Thats what A.I. does, it makes already blurred lines even more fuzzy.
@@mack_solo it matters to me if something is generated by humans versus machines, if something is as original as a person can make it, or is a machine is taking the works of many people to generate an image.
@@savagefrieze4675 i sincerely hope people in charge of regulations are as clear about it as you are, but I'm not enthusiastic it will be the case.
What will be interesting is the effect on wildlife photography. There will need to be a way to demonstrate that your picture is authentic and not just generated by AI and that you have actually recorded real animal behaviour. Imagine: 'lion in a forest juggling'!
If often wonder whether AI is built into the new mirrorless cameras.. I wonder whether the images are actually sharper and noise reduction is built in too.. When I first got into wildlife photography it was all about getting the best lens.. Today it's all about the camera body you have.. Which begs the question are the images we are getting optically sharper or is it software giving us digital sharpness??
If it's software then I presume the raw optical quality is of a lower standard and I would also presume a good quality lens would produce better results.. .. I find it interesting the high quality of images coming from fairly cheap lenses on the mirrorless system....
Most of my work as a photographer has NO art in it, just a service or package I do over and over again. I haven't, but using AI for editing my portrait would be ideal for an immediate turn around, i can charge the same without taking a day for retouch.
Not only do humans have an innate desire to create, but we also have innate unquenchable curiosity. Combined, these two human needs will always create opportunities for our species.
Pictures will still be taken -- they'll be the initial input to the AI, from which professional results will be produced, and it will not matter a whole lot how good the initial input was, how fine the camera was, or how refined the taker's skill was.
You are talking about technical skills. creative eye cant be replaced
As for the Hotel brand who was it ??
I think AI might push more photographers and artists to more analog ways of doing things. I've seen it with even the new auto focus on cameras, I've heard quite a few people think cameras are doing to much and they're moving to older platforms.
AI image generators are just another art tool. Autotune was considered death of vocal talent in music, but it became just another tool.
This same people spoke about the cars. Horses are future. You can't beat horsers ;) but yes, here are two different ends of stick. One is commercial and AI will change a lot. Senond end is fun, creative part, you can't replace by Ai. ;)