from the eMusings Archive...

Volume 16 • Number 1 • August 2023

Rise of the Machines- Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Photography

by Huntington Witherill

“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” —Eliezer Yudkowsky

For this, the final eMusings essay, I thought I’d attempt to articulate a few developing thoughts in relation to the formidable rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its potential implications for the future of photography. Nothing like a nice hot-button topic to close out the program, I say.

Having initially done my level best to ignore this particular subject, in its entirety, I eventually came to the realization that tackling such a manifestly thorny issue (as AI most assuredly is) would become necessary in order to properly illuminate my own creative path forward. What’s more, I concluded the examination might also serve to highlight some of the contributing factors associated with the announced discontinuation of this newsletter while, at the same time, helping to explain the more recent (presumably temporary) ebb in my own creative momentum and overall work output. Yet, before I get too far ahead of myself, a couple of caveats are probably in order.

I intentionally chose the word: developing (as in: “developing thoughts”) so as to adequately allude to my own less than complete expertise when it comes to the intricacies and complexities of AI. I should also note a personal lack of first-hand operational experience with the process, itself, particularly as it relates to the online creation of photographs formulated through language-based software programs characterized as: AI image generators. In short, my overall knowledge and understanding of what is a highly complex and relatively recent phenomenon will, as of this writing, be less than fully developed. As such, what I suggest, herein, will constitute a variety of personal opinions, a few honest assumptions… and little else. Be forewarned.

Owing to the fact that Artificial Intelligence has been the focus of a fair amount of recent and ongoing media coverage, and that the editorial scope of that coverage has (predictably) tended toward the more sensational and controversial aspects of the rise, itself, I have remained undeniably hesitant to embrace AI’s projected inevitability, as a matter of course. Further, as a working fine art photographer, my own developing awareness, understanding, and attitude toward a growing community of web-based AI image generating platforms remains neither necessarily favorable, nor particularly optimistic for the future. I find myself standing at a crossroad while exercising a significant level of unforeseen introspection and soul-searching.

Notwithstanding the foregoing stipulations, Artificial Intelligence appears to be well on its way to inevitable engagement with virtually every conceivable artistic enterprise yet devised by man. By that I mean not just still photography and film making, but also music, creative writing, illustration, architecture, and what looks to be a fairly comprehensive laundry list of pursuits involving acts of human-based creativity and artistic self-expression. Accordingly, AI is quickly establishing itself as a profoundly consequential (if not conspicuously ominous) concern that should likely be of significant interest to anyone who uses (and relies upon) innate creativity and imagination to help guide, inform, and/or potentially enhance their own individuality and life experience. And of course, that would include anyone who identifies as a photographer — regardless their personal approach to the medium and, irrespective of whether or not they choose to employ AI in any process specific capacity, be it total, partial, or with a tinge of sadistic irony… not at all.

The following admonition is intended to emphasize but one aspect of the underlying dilemma, as I see it.
 
Separate of any envisioned benefits being reassuringly attributed to the technology, itself, (and by the way, let’s not even mention AI’s demonstrable predisposition to stir up a hornet's nest of legal issues) Artificial Intelligence is poised to compound and exacerbate one of the more fundamental and enduring challenges that photography has been compelled to confront (and has continually endeavored to transcend) since Joseph Nicephor Niépce captured the world’s first photograph, in 1822. The challenge I refer to may be generally described as the medium’s ongoing struggle to be taken more seriously as a legitimate art form.

Rooted in a perceived handicap which appears to be inextricably tied to the mechanical nature of a camera and the presumed ease with which the tool is able to render realistic looking images, the challenge might be more accurately expressed as photography’s perpetually questioned legitimacy as a product of exclusively human-generated creative artistic expression. No matter. The spuriously ascribed impediment is often articulated by comparing photography to other art mediums such as drawing and painting which, apparently, do not involve similar encumbrances.

Be that as it may, the camera’s unique inability to effectively shed its own aesthetically distrusted mechanical trappings will likely continue to depress its relative status as a universally embraced tool for producing legitimate artistic expression. At the same time, the imposition of AI will most assuredly amplify, if not then fully justify and explicitly validate those selfsame stereotypes. You see, once the objectivity and perceived reality presumed to be inherent in camera-based images is combined with the computer-centric and robotically autonomous nature of AI — whatever relative level of trust the medium’s audience may previously have placed in the overall integrity and authenticity of photographers’ human contributions to the art, itself, that trust will invariably dry-up and blow away. And, like it or not, due in part to its own machine learning algorithms, AI is already in the process of actively compounding, reinforcing, and proliferating the short shrift.

In the event you have any doubt about the underlying premise driving the above prophecy, I would challenge you to survey and tally a majority of randomly chosen laypersons (regardless the context and/or specific sample size) who do not honestly believe that they could produce the very same picture that any professional photographer has produced, if only they had the same camera as that professional happens to possess. (And, to be clear in this context, I employ the term laypersons in specific reference to that vast majority of individuals, throughout the world, who have no idea who Ansel Adams and/or Edward Weston are, or were.) Unfortunately, to the uninitiated, cameras are rarely mistaken for, much less equated with, paintbrushes when it comes to universally prescribed tools for producing “real” art.

As an aside, and as I continue to think about all of this, the foregoing admonitions may also constitute a somewhat ironic proposition for me to be suggesting given that AI-based software programs like Midjourney and DALL-E2 (together with a growing array of competitors) operate at the specific direction of encoded text prompts. Such AI-assisted applications do not, at any point during what is, otherwise, an entirely computer driven process, appear to depend upon (nor even employ) the use of a camera... of any kind. With AI, it’s strictly ones and zeros. Thus, among its other debatable accolades, AI-based “photography” (at least that which employs the aforementioned software applications) has apparently managed to jettison the camera… altogether.

At this point you may be wondering… What’s the bottom line here? Well, as far as I’m concerned, the bottom line is this: Artificial Intelligence will soon become the convenient and, dare I suggest, entirely legitimate excuse to explain why and how it is that the medium of photography has become little more than a mindless act of mechanically reproduced reiteration. Further, with no more than a modicum of cynicism, I might even be inclined to excuse any photographic process that employs the facility of AI as being an act of technologically induced regurgitation. But then… I digress. Regardless of how it is characterized, AI will help to ensure that nearly all acts of personalized artistic self-expression (especially those that involve a human being operating a camera) will soon become, at best, a legitimately questioned undertaking.

Now of course, not every photographer will run out and climb aboard the AI train to Nirvana. Yet, in one of those classic Catch-22 scenarios, it doesn’t appear to make much difference whether one chooses to ride, or not. With the rise of AI, the art of photography will (for all practitioners) be rendered forever thereafter legitimately suspect in terms of whether or not each successive photograph has been generated and crafted by a human being — or has been otherwise electronically contrived and concocted through the latest software iteration uploaded to some remotely warehoused data processing machine. As a committed fine art photographer, this seems a fairly important (if not potentially show-stopping) development.

While not wanting to go out in a fiery blaze of negativity, I do think it’s important to be honest with myself and not ignore the fact that AI’s potential to overwhelm and ultimately nullify erstwhile acts of human creativity remains a genuine and ongoing concern. Through inevitable disruption and potential assimilation of personalized acts of artistic self-expression, AI simply does not paint a rosy picture for the future of photography.

I’d like to close by offering a few selected quotes encountered while doing some research in relation to this essay. And, for those interested to further explore the subject of AI, below the posted quotes I’ve attached several URL links leading to a number of online articles, videos, and in one case, a published book, all of which consider a variety of contrasting viewpoints associated with the challenges of Artificial Intelligence.

Am I simply an old man who is hopelessly yelling at the clouds? Maybe so. But, before you completely write-off the foregoing assessment, ask yourself the following question: How important is it, to you, that your own creative efforts be a result of your own creative efforts?

Artificial Intelligence appears to be the Faustian bargain that will soon bring that question directly to the forefront.

Huntington Witherill

Selected Quotes related to Artificial Intelligence-

“By far, the greatest danger of Artificial Intelligence is that people conclude too early that they understand it.” —Eliezer Yudkowsky

 “The potential benefits of artificial intelligence are huge, so are the dangers.” —Dave Waters

“In the long term, artificial intelligence [will] be taking over so much of what gives humans a feeling of purpose.” —Matt Bellamy

 “Machine learning will automate jobs that most people thought could only be done by people.” —Dave Waters

“Before we work on artificial intelligence why don’t we do something about natural stupidity?” —Steve Polyak

Selected Articles, Videos, and Book Links related to Artificial Intelligence

The End of Art: An Argument Against Image AIs - video by Steven Zapata

The Creativity of AI Art - video by Emergent Garden

The AI Effect: A New Era in Music and Its Unintended Consequences - video by Rick Beato

A Trilogy of Meditations on AI and Art (Part One) - article by Thaddeus G. McCotter

A Trilogy of Meditations on AI and Art (Part Two) - article by Thaddeus G. McCotter

A Trilogy of Meditations on AI and Art (Part Three) - article by Thaddeus G. McCotter

All Hail the Coming Computer King? - article by J.B. Shurk

Runaway AI Train - article by Richard Fernandez

Five Ways AI is Changing Art - article by Kaushik Pal

When AI Can Make Art – what does it mean for creativity? - article by Betsy Reed

The Future of AI Art: Impact on the Art World - article by Younes Asri

Why Artists are Fed Up with AI Art - video by SamDoesArt

The Myth of Artificial Intelligence: Why Computers Can’t Think the Way We Do – book by Eric J. Larson