The Problem With AI "Photography" | It's Worse Than You Think

[@KellyPettit]

I am a professional musician in Japan. For 30 years my other passion has been photography. I started with a Pentax K1000. Anyway, it's a sad thing IMO. Music, photography, graphic design, video, video editing, and basically anything that an artist loves to do is now in the hands of all our uploads and taken over by AI. A long time ago, whale blubber oil was used to light homes. This is another turning point. It's just sad that artists get destroyed first.

[@IShallCallHimTaders]

Yup, what a dystopia we live in. Humans work 40-90 hours a week. While Robots make art. Instead of the other way around. God I hate this reality.

[@Attya-y2y]

Robots have already replaced a lot of the manual labor as well, like in factories for example, and with AI it's going to replace a lot of more advanced labour too. It's not like it's just doing art. And Robots producing art doesn't mean human can't do too, those two things can co-exist. What probably will be harder to exist in the future, is human artists that try to sell their art. But in my opinion the best art is the one you do without intent to profit from it. Actual disinterested acts of creation. An AI can't really take that away. No AI robot is going to stop you from picking up a brush to paint on a canva, or to prevent you from taking your camera and go outside to take some pictures. You probably won't be able to sell those canvas and photos anymore though.

[@themjkelley]

I agree with most of your points. I would argue that authenticity still matters. People like vinyl, real books, and film photography. One could make a case that this resurgence is because people want authentic value in the art they enjoy. It being "real" and a physical object makes it valuable. So I'm hopeful that many genres of photography will maintain their value. However, food, product, real estate, and headshots might be the most threatened by AI right now.

[@rachelg7371]

New subscriber. Helpful tips. Still fuzzy on “intersect with” but I do use some of the other masking tips in the sky. Thanks for sharing.😊

[@PixWaxGB]

As with all advances in technology - the biggest impact will be when the methods and techniques are lost or only known by a handful of people. Navigation, for example. Google/Apple Maps are great and I use CarPlay quite a lot, especially when travelling to places I have not been to before. Now if the technology couldn't be used, phone battery dies/no internet etc - those that are so use to using maps may struggle to navigate. I can see this happening with Photos. Hopefully a long, long way off if it does - but one day people may ask "what is a camera? how do I use it? what an old fashioned way of creating an image".

[@Classicdslr]

You mentioned in the video that you have a camera that costs 4000 and lenses for another 10 000 while the AI upscalers can already provide similar detail...Could you confirm this? Like could Topaz Gigapixel for e.g. subsitute 50-100mp images from top medium or full frame sensors? Could a beginner use a 2nd hand Canon 5D for e.g. (12 mp) or even older gear or his older phone images and upscale them enough to print posters of at least 24x36 inches on fine art papers with extreme detail to call them a luxury product?

[@stephenschmid492]

Thank you, Nickolas, for this thoughtful video. I've had many of the same reactions as you. I detest when AI images are posted without disclosure, pretending to be real (and thrre are so many now). And I am dismayed by how many people are fooled by even obvious fakes. The other part that bothers me is that these AI generators have been trained by using real images by people like you, me and others, without asking and without any compensation.

[@Attya-y2y]

For now, it's still possible to tell AI images apart from the others in many cases. But the ironic thing is that in the future when AI images will be way more advanced, a lot of them might even start looking more real than "real" photographs. A lot of the real photographs that you see on social media are heavily edited in post. So in a way, future advanced AI will be able, if you ask them, to produce realistic images with an un-edited look that are actually closer to reality than an edited real photo from social media.

[@marianodemiguel3442]

My opinion is to embrace it as the most powerful editing tool imaginable with infinity possibilities. I do want to say though that I personally prefer your originals.

[@GrimdarkKing]

Synthography. That’s the proper term. It’s not “Ai photography”. It’s Synthography.

[@downsouth2158]

AI is new age graphic arts and should never be compared to or called photography. It’s just so pitiful to see the uninformed comments on social media; “beautiful picture”, “awesome shot” or “most beautiful picture I’ve ever seen” when none of these “images” have ever seen a lens.

[@michaeljenner1795]

People were putting fairies into photos back in the 1800s. I'm not happy with the idea of ai which is odd because I make collage work myself, but using my own photos. I remember when I first started teaching PS users often created pretty awful stuff. It's hard to come up with good ideas. Once users started putting thought into the compositions it made a good difference. It will be the same with ai. If you just put a tiger in a grocery store, without giving some thought as to why, it's probably not going to resonate because it’s a trite idea. One still has to have something worth communicating and then do it well. But, with ai, it becomes more like conceptual art. With conceptual art, if the idea is good enough, and described well enough, execution almost becomes optional. I’ve seen worse ideas, like large photos of dust bunnies presented in a gallery.

[@statisticalerror]

Actually, there’s nothing particularly unique about the situation in which photographers find themselves. Since the Industrial Revolution, we’ve seen the way our society utilizes technology either render many jobs obsolete or automate them to the point where it severs the connection between the worker and their creation. Notice the irony that, as you said, we have to adapt to technology and not the other way around. I’d argue the problem should be solved through collective action.

[@baltakatei]

I wish I could block user names that ended in numbers.

[@lewis1180]

How do we adapt?

[@banditalley9592]

AI can never replace product photography. The AI cannot know what your new product looks like if it has never been seen or photographed before, and all the descriptions in the world wont help it. At some point, someone will sue when the AI image isn't showing 100% accurately what these AI restaurant food images show.

[@michaeljenner1795]

But, who wants to do product photography? Isn't that exactly the sort of thing ai should free us from?

[@TheBigBlueMarble]

AI does not create photographs. AI creates an image. Photographs come only from a camera. The first step in dealing with this issue is to apply the proper terms to each. The truth is that many situations where photograph are used do not actually require a photograph. Take advertising as an example. Before cameras, advertising included drawings. Cameras came along and provided a more accurate, faster, cheaper way of showing a product. Now, we are at the next step and AI has the same benefits when compared to photographs. Some genres of photography are not unnecessary.

[@jondevaney6860]

I made an intelligent short comment, but this stupid comment program (with its overactive auto-complete and spell check functions) kept introducing errors in my text, and eventually froze up and I lost my 5-plus minutes of work. So you viewers lose again.

[@chriscard6544]

AI is like breasts implants, I prefer natural ones by ethic, so I do film photography. It is a struggle against technology.

[@freetibet1000]

Now, I’m going to be a little bit provocative and say this; Ai is the best thing that have ever happened to us real artists. Why? Because now we can truly stop looking for approval and money from our passion. We can never compete with the glossy Ai output. Instead, we now have been given the gift of being truly creative and explorative in a way we never dared before. Now when we have lost the audience we are being freed from the shackles of pleasing others and can delve deep into our own art instead. We no longer have to hang out on Facebook or Instagram. No one will notice us and our work anymore. We are free now to return to our intrinsic nature of creativity without ever being bothered by anybody. Happy days ahead!

[@michaelc3977]

It's really not killing photography. It just seems that way to you because, personally, are just failing to adapt to the new technology while still justifying the expense of your, now retro, hobby. Oh, yes. You came to this understanding right at the end of your video. You got this.

[@chriscard6544]

I agree but it kills sunset/sunrise photography and it's good so that we can focus on art. Im bored with instagram photoshop photography

[@zacklarez]

I'm a professional artist in the film industry and a semi-pro photographer. It's killing photography and art. By killing I mean that the actual creation of photographs and art is being taken from the artists and photographers by people who can type a sentence or click and drag on a computer. Even if photographers "adapt", the original photos that they create are still ultimately taken by services like shutterstock and altered with AI enough to not have to pay them for their images. So, if by adapt, you mean photographers become AI users themselves, then nobody will be left to actually make art and photography since it will not pay because it's immediately stolen. AI bros and AI apologists won't acknowledge this. I support advances in technology. What is happening now is theft on a scale never seen before.

[@rayrike1223]

AI is stealing the generative fill images from somewhere. And based on what has happened with print media AI did not pay for it.

[@michaelc3977]

@@zacklarez So are you suggestion that ultimately there will be no photography?

[@EhEsDeeEf]

git gud lmao

[@adamfalgout6601]

Sooooo get better at generating awesome AI photos for stock and stop whining.

[@ramonvillegas1785]

Sorry but I’m passionate about photography, I want to do it myself, I’m not a lazy and talentless ai prompter