How will AI affect "making" versus "taking" photo's?

[Ron789]

AI is rapidly getting better at "making" photo's. But AI is not capable of "taking" photo's. Well.... for now. Maybe one day there will be AI driven robots, drones etc. that autonomously go out to "take" great photo's in the real world based on their own (artificial) intelligence and interest, just like photographers do today... who knows.....
Is there still a future for photographers "making" photo's? What route should they take to distinguish themselves from AI generated photography?
Or should photographers from now on focus on "taking" photo's (documentary, sports, journalism etc.) and leave the "making" to AI?
Personally, I mostly "take" photo's and only occasionally "make" photo's, just for the fun of it. But for those who make a living from photography for sure AI will be a game changer. Your thoughts?

 

[retina_restoration]

AI does not make photographs. It can make photorealistic simulations of photographs but by definition, what AI makes is not photography. Many are referring to this kind of illustration as "Promptography".

 

[RalphLambrecht]

AI does not make photographs. It can make photorealistic simulations of photographs but by definition, what AI makes is not photography. Many are referring to this kind of illustration as "Promptography".

grat term and it may be an art by itself.

 

[retina_restoration]

grat term and it may be an art by itself.

I see no reason why it can’t be regarded as its own category of art. But many people refer to it as photography, which it is not.

 

[koraks]

Is there still a future for photographers "making" photo's? What route should they take to distinguish themselves from AI generated photography?

Sure, there's a future for human photographers. Keep in mind that the majority of landscape etc. photography hasn't been very innovative for the past 80 years or so to begin with, so the question may have played around in the background much longer than many of us had realized. Apparently most of us who practice photography in less-than-innovative fashion (which is the vast majority of amateur & pro photographers) haven't been bothered too much by the notion that "it's been done before". I doubt we will bother much by a similar "it's being done by something else as well".

From an artistic viewpoint, in my view the processes of conceptualization and embedding human meaning into a work of art (as it's made as well as when it's being 'consumed' by the public) are essential. These cannot be substituted by AI as we presently know it, as AI is not sentient, does not actually understand or feel anything and therefore isn't capable of sensemaking. In this sense, AI hasn't even put as much as a dent into artistic photography.

The whole problem is much less of an issue than people seem to realize, and arguably doesn't even exist.

 

[Don_ih]

AI does not make photographs. It can make photorealistic simulations of photographs but by definition, what AI makes is not photography. Many are referring to this kind of illustration as "Promptography".

That, however, is a distinction in sentiment only. In terms of practicality, if what AI generates is used as a photo, that's all that matters. It eliminates the search for an "actual" photo by generating an image based on what is desired. That's all it needs to be because that's all commercial photography has ever striven to be.

From an artistic viewpoint, in my view the processes of conceptualization and embedding human meaning into a work of art (as it's made as well as when it's being 'consumed' by the public) are essential. These cannot be substituted by AI as we presently know it, as AI is not sentient, does not actually understand or feel anything and therefore isn't capable of sensemaking. In this sense, AI hasn't even put as much as a dent into artistic photography.

Similarly, meaning in art is what can be understood from the piece by whoever views it. So, that can take place without an identified author/creator (artist) -- it doesn't need the hard and fast confirmed ascription to a real human being for someone to "appreciate" the artwork. Such appreciation tends to induce a creator with a mind and a desire to communicate through the art object, but that has always been a convenient fiction. You can get along just fine pretending there is a creator who imbibed the work with meaning - even if the piece is a product of AI.

 

[Hassasin]

Ai is not nor will ever be, in true sense of the word, a category of art, but eventually it will be called that, and will sell as such, and there will be opportunists who will take advantage of it, faking it up even further.

But there is a very simple solution - stay away from it, make your own images as you know how, and don't bother thinking of Ai as being a competitor. If you bring yourself down to that level, you don't respect your own work.

 

[Sirius Glass]

My imagination is better than AI.

 

[MattKing]

We probably won't be able to answer the question posed until we have at least 40 years to look back on how things evolved.
One thing for sure though - AI will transform the industry, and everything supporting photography.
It is already making big differences in how things are maintained/kept working - including websites like Photrio!

 

[cliveh]

I would like to think that the making of photographs will elevate the taking of photographs to its own unique status in the photographic genre.

 

[pentaxuser]

We probably won't be able to answer the question posed until we have at least 40 years to look back on how things evolved.

I look forward to you reading your treatise, Matt, once they unfreeze me


pentaxuser

 

[ic-racer]

Are there bots that make AI digital art without prompting? If so, are they uploaded somewhere?

 

[koraks]

Are there bots that make AI digital art without prompting?

Sure -
Flickr.com
Instagram.com

(runs for cover)

 

[Ron789]

I see several replies talking about photography as "art". Sure, there exists art photography.
But most commercial photographers don't make art, they make images in order to make a living by meeting the demand of their customers. If those customer demands can be met by AI generated images, the future of those commercial photographers (the vast majority of all professional photographers in the world) will be challenging.
I recently met an interesting professional, commercial photographer who serves a niche market. This guy makes a living by photographing farming equipment, like tractors, harvesters etc. His customers are mainly agriculture professional magazines, who are especially interested in the latest and greatest new products. This guy travels all over the world to visit fairs and manufacturers and make photo's of new products.
This made me realize: Yes, AI can easily produce an image of a tractor, but AI cannot produce an image of the newest John Deere tractor that was first shown to the public today at a fair in, say, Plano, Texas.

 

[Don_ih]

But most commercial photographers don't make art, they make images in order to make a living by meeting the demand of their customers.

So that means they don't make art? What's art if not that?

People really need to get their noses out of the air about what art is. Art is human creative product. End of sentence.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

... Art is human creative product. End of sentence.

Having a good faith discussion about art on this forum is an exercise in frustration, as far as I can tell.

One of my favourite definitions of art is "non-functional stylistic dynamism" by Morse Peckham. Not perfect, but one a good one.

 

[Don_ih]

In practical terms (which are the only ones that matter, ultimately), art is human creative product. Attempts to elevate it to some kind of mystical status are what causes all the problems. People think art is special. Great art is special. Art is a normal human product. Most art is mundane.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

Maybe... I think ultimately art is whatever two or more people agree art is amongst themselves. There certainly doesn't seem to be an objective way to define it.

Speech is a "human creative product" - is that art? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends.

 

[Don_ih]

Speech is not a human creative product, as such. But it can be the medium of human creative product.

 

[0x001688936CA08]

Well, that really balances on what you consider to be "human creative product" then, I get the sense it means something physical for you.

I'm a human that created a spreadsheet today, then I created a print out of the spreadsheet. Was I an artist making art?

 

[0x001688936CA08]

I've misinterpreted what you said... perhaps you're alluding to written works or performances as art?

 

[Arthurwg]

An interesting article on AI appeared recently in Artfourm (April 2005), entitled "Machine Yearning," pp. 103-107. Among other things, the article suggests that what we now call AI, or Computer Vision as it pertains to the art world, is actually a directly linked machine-made continuation of photography, originating in the mid-19th Century.

 

[Arthurwg]

Thinking more about this, it's possible that the origin of what we think of as AI in the visual arts may date from Walter Benjamin's 1935 essay, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." In this sense, the replication of original art works inevitably alters their character and our perception of them.

These days, I often shoot my Nikon F6 in "program" mode, which means that a computer algorithm, along with auto focus, sets the parameters that create the picture. In many ways, this seems like a form of AI.

 

[koraks]

but AI cannot produce an image of the newest John Deere tractor that was first shown to the public today at a fair in, say, Plano, Texas.

Sure it can. Maybe not yet, but given the commercial relevance of just this combined with the technical feasibility puts it into arm's reach already. And it's exactly that kind of photography that can be (and already is being) replaced by AI.

An interesting article on AI appeared recently in Artfourm (April 2005), entitled "Machine Yearning," pp. 103-107. Among other things, the article suggests that what we now call AI, or Computer Vision as it pertains to the art world, is actually a directly linked machine-made continuation of photography, originating in the mid-19th Century.

Quoted from that article (2025, not 2005):

Computer vision, however, is not an extension of photography.

Also, you contend that the article allegedly said (which it didn't) that it viewed computer vision as such "as pertains to the art world". That's not the case. The scope of the article is limited to the study of art in the field of art history. And it very explicitly is NOT about computer vision as a means of image-making, let alone its role as a possible substitute, threat, alternative or addition to the field of photography as such:

Instead of focusing on what computer vision can achieve in processing images, I want to offer a historical account of the language and the feelings used to frame its imagined role in art-historical practice.

So the fact that 'AI' is referred to as 'computer vision' here is noteworthy - it's not the 'AI' we were talking about in this thread.

The questions surrounding how computer vision can play a role in the study of art are certainly interesting. It would for instance be interesting to explore that from a position that is not as incredibly and irrationally biased against it as that of the author of the cited article - who really goes out of her way to try and dismiss any possible advantage to the technology, even in cases where those who applied the technology clearly indicated having experienced benefits from it (although perhaps not those they had hoped for - which is something that happens a lot in research). As the article progresses, it turns more and more into a superficial lament about the horrors of big tech, mixed in with some overt jealousy about funding of research ("why are the computer kids getting all the dough and we aren't getting any, waaaaahhhh"). Despite its seemingly systematic analysis, the piece simply ignores blatant facts about how research works and how technologies in general never reach maturity (and are often misunderstood) within a few short years after the appear to the scene.

 

[Arthurwg]

Yes, 2025, not 2005. My mistake. But to quote from the article, researchers at the Getty Research Institute have argued that "computer vision should be regarded as one link in a longer historic chain of machinic (sic) vision that began in the nineteenth century with photography." The author goes on to dispute that, but I think there's something to it. Back in the day, it was argued that photography could not be art because it was made by a "machine." It seems that the same argument is being made about computer generated art today.