Gallery photos: size limit, and should we allow AI content?

[Sirius Glass]

Why aren't we requiring flagging when someone clones in skies or other things?

I would strongly agree with requiring that cloned skies be identified. I do not enjoy seeing the same sky in photograph after photograph.

 

[koraks]

I would strongly agree with requiring that cloned skies be identified. I do not enjoy seeing the same sky in photograph after photograph.

In the past 20 years there's never been a demand from the community to be explicit on this, despite tools to make photographic montages having been around since the mid-19th century. There has also never been a systematic problem in this regard on Photrio (or before, Apug) with people posting montages and then other people complaining about it. I don't recall ever having seen a series of images here with 'the same sky in photograph after photograph'.

I'm more than happy to solve existing problems. Hypothetical ones warrant much less investment in creating additional regulations etc.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

My 2 cents on AI -
As a general rule, I dislike the vast majority of AI generated images. I would want to exclude those images from Photrio. On the flip-side, I have seen some truly well-done AI work that is aesthetically worthwhile and is being done in an ethical manner.

One example: back in 2023 I was in Mexico City and went to see the biennial at the Centro de la Imagen. One of the awarded artists was a photographer from a mostly indigenous, poor rural community where photography was out of reach of most of the families until the mid 20th century. As a result of that condition, there were no photos of the ancestors of the residents going back before 1900. His project was to take images of the current living residents, feed his own images into an AI engine, and then generate ancestor portraits that had the look and feel of turn-of-the-century tintypes. These were ethically produced- he used his own images, not other people's work, and he also explicitly affirmed the use of AI in the body of work.

A second example - a friend of mine creates a body of work combining images of human figures with botanical motifs (a young man's head-and-shoulders portrait with a crown of cacti growing from his hair, for example). It also checks off the boxes of ethics and authenticity - he's not trying to pass it off as "straight" photography, and he's using his own imagery to feed the AI engine.

The above cases are the kind of AI I think should be allowable, if we want to open that door in any way. The test for any AI imagery should require those two criteria - the person sharing it should affirm that A: the image is created from their own work, and B: that they acknowledge the image was generated by AI.

 

[koraks]

the kind of AI I think should be allowable, if we want to open that door in any way

To clarify, we have an open door; it's here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/forums/ai-in-photography-and-other-arts.408/ So far, we have vastly more people complaining about the possibility of people posting AI than people actually posting AI. So I assume the situation will continue to contain itself towards the near future.

As to what kind of AI we're going to allow - speaking personally, like you, I also find some AI imagery more interesting, original and thoughtful than others, but that's not a police-able boundary. We're not going to create a situation where we're going to have to say "ah, but your AI isn't very good, and therefore it's not allowed." I for one wouldn't enforce any rule in that direction. As it stands and IMO: if it adheres to the forum rules we already have and it's in reasonably good taste (i.e. no porn, smut, gore, political, religious stuff etc.), people are free to share and discuss it in the designated space.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

To clarify, we have an open door; it's here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/forums/ai-in-photography-and-other-arts.408/ So far, we have vastly more people complaining about the possibility of people posting AI than people actually posting AI. So I assume the situation will continue to contain itself towards the near future.

As to what kind of AI we're going to allow - speaking personally, like you, I also find some AI imagery more interesting, original and thoughtful than others, but that's not a police-able boundary. We're not going to create a situation where we're going to have to say "ah, but your AI isn't very good, and therefore it's not allowed." I for one wouldn't enforce any rule in that direction. As it stands and IMO: if it adheres to the forum rules we already have and it's in reasonably good taste (i.e. no porn, smut, gore, political, religious stuff etc.), people are free to share and discuss it in the designated space.

I agree we can't police the quality of AI - that will become self-policing when someone posting bad AI gets shouted down in the comments (or receives no comments at all and gets frustrated at the lack of response to their work). If I gave the impression I was arguing for some kind of curation here by the examples I gave, that was not my intent - I merely wanted to provide some examples of valid use of AI. Forgive me if I'm behind the curve - I've been away from the site for a while. Would it be a heavy lift to add a couple of checkboxes to the gallery upload to indicate that the work being uploaded is AI generated, and if so, the generated work was created using original content owned by the creator (as opposed to work supplied by the AI tool)? I think those two selections, and the ability to filter the gallery based on them, would go a long way to satisfying those who don't want to see it.

 

[koraks]

Thanks for elaborating your point; I understand!

Would it be a heavy lift to add a couple of checkboxes to the gallery upload to indicate that the work being uploaded is AI generated, and if so, the generated work was created using original content owned by the creator (as opposed to work supplied by the AI tool)?

Yes and no; in fact this would align with some structural work @Sean is currently gearing up to do. However, as it stands, I don't see AI imagery appearing in the main gallery; we've taken a pretty firm position on that. However, the designated place I mentioned will in principle remain in place and people can share their AI-generated work there. Since that will be very explicitly part of the scope of that place, additional tagging may not be necessary - although we'll certainly consider it if it seems sensible. Thanks for bringing it up!

 

[BrianShaw]

Since Sean is doing structural work on the site, perhaps he should consider a rebrand as "Photquattuor" and create a separate area for AI imagemaking.

 

[koraks]

I really think it's going to be more like "Photri-and-one-sixty-fourth-o".

 

[Sirius Glass]

To clarify, we have an open door; it's here: https://www.photrio.com/forum/forums/ai-in-photography-and-other-arts.408/ So far, we have vastly more people complaining about the possibility of people posting AI than people actually posting AI. So I assume the situation will continue to contain itself towards the near future.

As to what kind of AI we're going to allow - speaking personally, like you, I also find some AI imagery more interesting, original and thoughtful than others, but that's not a police-able boundary. We're not going to create a situation where we're going to have to say "ah, but your AI isn't very good, and therefore it's not allowed." I for one wouldn't enforce any rule in that direction. As it stands and IMO: if it adheres to the forum rules we already have and it's in reasonably good taste (i.e. no porn, smut, gore, political, religious stuff etc.), people are free to share and discuss it in the designated space.

The choice of AF In/AI Out should be Boolean and a mixture which out be impossible to moderate. Even moderators have lives.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Thanks for elaborating your point; I understand!


Yes and no; in fact this would align with some structural work @Sean is currently gearing up to do. However, as it stands, I don't see AI imagery appearing in the main gallery; we've taken a pretty firm position on that. However, the designated place I mentioned will in principle remain in place and people can share their AI-generated work there. Since that will be very explicitly part of the scope of that place, additional tagging may not be necessary - although we'll certainly consider it if it seems sensible. Thanks for bringing it up!

In a subforum that one could set to be ignored?

 

[koraks]

In a subforum that one could set to be ignored?

Yes, subforums can be ignored, so this one too.

 

[Andrew O'Neill]

I'm not really interested in AI generated images for myself but, as an artist, I certainly would like to be able to see others' work.