Can a picture tell a lie?
AI is changing our landscape. Photographs can now tell a thousand words and a thousand lies.
Are you sick of hearing and reading about Artificial Intelligence (AI) yet? I sort of am.
It reminds me of the hype around Cryptocurrency — it’s something I have a vague interest in, but I don’t need (or want) to know the details on how it all works. I just don’t care for it that much.
But unlike Crypto, AI is having an influence on all aspects of our lives. How we consume media, how we work, how we interact. And at this point it’s been pretty convenient.
I work in social media (yuck), and getting ChatGPT to write my cringey Instagram captions is a godsend. No more of my time is wasted finding the right emoji or the best use of alliteration. ChatGPT conjures it up in mere seconds.
Most of my interactions with AI is through ChatGPT — but there is a whole new world of generative AI to explore. It’s bloody scary.
Generative AI in photography is a line I cannot cross
I do think Generative AI is a threat to photography and… democracy? But I’m willing to change my mind. (The latter would be nice. Then I could stop being so existential.)
Okay, let’s take a step back for a sec. There’s a few pressing issues at the forefront of my mind about this. I promise to explain myself and my generalising statement.
But first, I don’t necessarily think all mediums of photography are at risk — wedding photography, sports, family photos, I think there is a very obvious need for a real person behind the camera, and real people in front of it.
I also think that as someone who has a career in marketing, generative AI opens many doors for creating stock imagery — but it’s not at a point where this can be done quickly. Using Bing’s free program, it took me a while to generate these:
I do like the aesthetic of the second photo, though. Except for that giant wooden soup spoon in the background.
Anyway, back to what I was saying.
1. AI photographs are starting to become accepted in photo exhibitions
The Head On Photo Festival (Head On), quite possibly the biggest photography event in Australia, has selected a series of AI-generated images as part of the exhibition lineup.
Four images were chosen and will be displayed on the iconic Bondi Beach in Sydney alongside non-AI generated photographs. And no, the AI images weren’t part of their own category. They were all judged equally — blindly.
The images were created by Toma Gerzha, a Dutch photographer and multimedia artist. Don’t get me wrong — the photos are interesting, fascinating, thought-provoking. But it just doesn’t sit well with me.
Head On stipulates that they don’t accept imagery generated purely from AI (I assume this means that you can use AI as a tool, but not the only tool). I feel that this new era of generative AI — which is being called “promptography” — should be kept to its own category.
I can’t tell which of Gerzha’s work is AI or not, and I hate to say it, but I’m not a fan of AI photography. That’s just my personal opinion. I think it’s… lazy.
2. Okay maybe lazy isn’t the right word
Photographer Annika Nordensköld recently won $2000 at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale for her AI photograph ‘Twin Sisters In Love’.
“None of these places, people or creatures exist in the physical realm… They were conjured from the sum of human experience in our deep collective well, as seen from my dreamboat with its flickering light.” Nordensköld said in her winning statement.
I’m just not sure I’m convinced it’s that deep. The photo is definitely compelling, but I think the compelling factor lays in the novelty that the image isn’t real — that it’s kinda wild that a computer made something like this. What do you think?
It’s impressive that a computer can bring such emotion into a humans face, yes, but computers have access to so many human faces that it doesn’t surprise me.
With the right (paid) tools, I don’t think it’s that hard to create images like this.
Can you imagine creating this image in person? Where does one even find a octopus-snake hybrid? How do you set a bike on fire when it’s in the water? It’d be one very expensive photo shoot.
Another great example is the photo above, which u/aoeuhtnsi posted to Reddit.
That red wooden canoe isn’t real. It was added using Adobe Photoshop’s new AI feature. The canoe is a great touch and it completely elevates the photo, so no shade to this user’s photo, but is it photography?
Like I said, lazy probably isn’t the right word. Effort goes into creating these images but it’s just not the same effort as taking a physical photo. I think AI-images are an art form in and of themselves, and should be categorised as such.
They’re not photography.
And where do we draw the line when it comes to what we believe to be real, and what is AI-generated?
3. The revolution will not be televised
It may not be photographed, either. The revolution will be AI-generated, apparently.
First, a caveat here: I don’t agree with Australia’s barbaric detention of refugees in Papua New Guinea and Nauru. I am Australian, it’s a national disgrace. But this is not a newsletter about that.
The Guardian recently published an article about an exhibition that used the testimonies of 300 refugees detained on Manus Island and Nauru as part of Australia’s offshore refugee processing system. The exhibition is entirely based on AI-generated photographs — none of these photos are real.
They never happened.
But they evoke feelings that make them feel real.
I recommend you take a look at the exhibition’s website. The testimonies are very real and these events did happen. These people have experienced unimaginable things.
But I just can’t get over the fact that these images are not real, and these scenes did not take place (or really, they did, but not in front of the lens of a camera). I look at these images and they evoke the same feelings as if I were looking at a real photo, and I truly cannot tell real from fake.
Testimony aside, does that mean we can, or should, recreate these experiences in photographs using generative AI?
We could use the argument here about paintings and the depiction of great battles, beheadings and other gory scenes throughout history. But photographs add another dimension, because they are real and they are a snapshot in time. Yes, photographers have creative license and can manipulate the mood of a scene, but I don’t think it’s comparable to the variation of reality a painter can add to her canvas.
This is partly the reason for how photography fundamentally changed the way we experience and create history and experiences. I’ll touch on that in another newsletter.
Ironically, The Guardian wrote an article about a generative AI image of the Tiananmen Square “tank man” from another angle, and how AI is ultimately a risk to disinformation. I think what I’m trying to say here is very well summarised in the article:
Images are such a powerful, scary tool for AI to grapple with because of a handful of old maxims. One: a picture tells a thousand words. The other? Seeing is believing… It’s easy to discount a story if you’re only reading about it. If you see it with your own eyes, and see the images included in it, it immediately becomes more credulous.
But isn’t this all a little scary for, ya know, democracy?
If we allow media outlets to publish generative AI images, are we saying that this is ethically sound? That it’s okay to create something that didn’t happen? That it’s fine to manipulate an audience into believing something is true when it’s not?
It’s all well and good for there to be a tiny caption beneath the image saying it’s AI generated, but I don’t think the human mind is at a point where it can discern what is real and what is fake. I know the photos above are fake, but they still create an element of truth in my mind.
I think this exhibition is excellent. But I am worried that it will pave the way for more AI generated images to enter the media and political landscape.
All we have to do is look back in time at Stalin’s mild obsession for “photoshopping” images to see evidence of the propaganda machine at work.
The difference is that this took hours of painstaking work, and though it’s very easy to remove people and things in photoshop these days, generative AI is now so accessible to the public that any number of things can be created in mere seconds. It no longer requires specialist skills or expensive programs.
Generative AI images are becoming more and more accepted. Mostly because they’re fun, but also because of the sheer power that lay behind them. Shouldn’t we be worried about that?
"They were conjured from the sum of human experience in our deep collective well, as seen from my dreamboat with its flickering light.”
I mean, that is certainly a florid way of saying, "I exploited the collective artistic works of the online generation, many of whom had no say or compensation in the works' use, to make my own derivative digital art".
i think it is important to understand that it's a (huge) difference between a photography and an image. first time when i paid attention to this small detail was when i came in contact with david hockney's work. in order for him to express, he took a series of photos then he put them together in a collage. the result it is an image but not a photo, an image made out of photos. another artist that comes to my mind is brooke shaden. she creates amazing images from photos that she took but with the help of photoshop and using layers after layers, the results are ... hmmm ... images to me. let's not forget that photoshop is with us for few good years now, some might say it was the begining of a.i.
another example is charlie borland (find him here on substack) a photographer that uses photoshop to enhance his photos for commercial purposes. when one completely changes the sky in a photo, is the result a photo? to me, no. the result is an image. don't get me wrong i'm not arguing or judging charlie's methods, in the end he is a creator but this is my argument over a.i.
ai was here yesterday, it is today and it will be tomorrow. yes it is a hype at the moment but it will pass. yes, it will have a huge influence but a good starting point for us is to understand the difference between a photo (physically taken) and an image (created).