Stop describing AI-generated art as photos!

[KenElevenShadows]

Stop describing AI-generated art as photos!

You type word prompts into a field. A computer spits out an AI-generated image. Sorry, that’s not a photo, and you’re not a photographer.

https://photofocus.com/photography/stop-describing-ai-generated-art-as-photos/

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

Well, this is what I was taught in photography classes in college.

"The word Photography literally means 'drawing with light', which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw."

 

So, technically just about anything you create on a computer would qualify under that definition. 

 

I get that AI is an annoyance (and about to become an overwhelming disaster), I also use a camera to make images. I recently did a series where I went to grocery stores and photographed freezer meat bins, then lit and posed a nude model, shooting with the same focal length and dropped her into the bins. I don't think they would have let us make those photos in the grocery store but they turned out well anyway. In my mind, that would still be photography too. 

[KenElevenShadows]

7 hours ago, KuruPrionz said:

Well, this is what I was taught in photography classes in college.

"The word Photography literally means 'drawing with light', which derives from the Greek photo, meaning light and graph, meaning to draw."

 

Right, and I do mention that in the article.

 

AI has nothing to do with light.

 

Drawings, etchings, paintings, photographs, and AI-generated art are separate things, the latter requiring the least amount of physical artistry aside from typing. And they all should be regarded as different.

 

I have some good words for someone who creates AI-generated art in the article, at any rate!  

[KuruPrionz]

OK, I read the article. 

😇

You aim, focus and snap the shutter on a digital camera. A complex series of ones and zeros are captured on a sensor which has an array of "pixels" covered with Red, Green and Blue filters..

The processor in the camera converts those tinted ones and zeros into an image but you cannot see it until you use some sort of illuminated screen, first the one on the back of the camera and later the monitor on your computer. 

You can enter data into your camera to tell it how to capture RGB ones and zeros. Is this somehow different than looking at a computer and entering data to tell the computer how to arrange the RGB ones and zeros, which is what somebody who is using AI would be doing?

I am a photographer, I take photos with a camera. I've also used Corel Painter, which features a vast simulated set of artist's tools that you can apply to a blank screen to create a painting. You are literally "writing with light". It all translates the same to me. 

 

FWIW, I've attached a composite I created recently - just for fun. It's not real. I don't think it would be possible to create this image in the real world without considerable negotiations with grocery store management and also the model would be really cold! 

It's implied but if it's in violation of MPN rules please feel free to delete it or let me know and I will. I've already copied and pasted this post in the event I need to post it again without the image. 

[KenElevenShadows]

On 10/4/2023 at 9:58 PM, KuruPrionz said:

OK, I read the article. 

😇

You aim, focus and snap the shutter on a digital camera. A complex series of ones and zeros are captured on a sensor which has an array of "pixels" covered with Red, Green and Blue filters..

The processor in the camera converts those tinted ones and zeros into an image but you cannot see it until you use some sort of illuminated screen, first the one on the back of the camera and later the monitor on your computer. 

You can enter data into your camera to tell it how to capture RGB ones and zeros. Is this somehow different than looking at a computer and entering data to tell the computer how to arrange the RGB ones and zeros, which is what somebody who is using AI would be doing?

 

Well, sure, it's wildly different. One has an image that was created by light. One.....you type in and a computer attempts to cobble together a picture for you.

 

One is a photo. One is AI-generated art. 

 

They should NEVER be confused with each other.

[KuruPrionz]

2 minutes ago, KenElevenShadows said:

Well, sure, it's wildly different. One has an image that was created by light. One.....you type in and a computer attempts to cobble together a picture for you.

 

One is a photo. One is AI-generated art. 

 

They should NEVER be confused with each other.

This typing in part is new to me, I did find it below, suggested as a way of use in one, and as you describe in another.. Are you typing in the titles of photos (that were created by light) that are going to be blended into a completed AI image?

That's what it looks like is happening here: https://www.artiphoria.ai/?gad=1&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp8wtaBQ9Zs64JjHnG59BFXmshGGMsomnFZ8i8oErO3p49Z--Q7yQ5MaAnCqEALw_wcB

And here, where they suggest you start with your own photo and allow their AI program to do the rest:https://gencraft.com

 

Microsoft Bing seems to fit your description well:https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/bing?form=MW00X7&ef_id=_k_Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp977C4gy8BJaSuTNksbwFIo7V_WN2_kbmKih0svHd1hk-cwDMFTLk0aAlLyEALw_wcB_k_&OCID=AIDcmmf8m4fdss_SEM__k_Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp977C4gy8BJaSuTNksbwFIo7V_WN2_kbmKih0svHd1hk-cwDMFTLk0aAlLyEALw_wcB_k_&gclid=Cj0KCQjwpompBhDZARIsAFD_Fp977C4gy8BJaSuTNksbwFIo7V_WN2_kbmKih0svHd1hk-cwDMFTLk0aAlLyEALw_wcB

 

I guess there are a variety of approaches to this new form of imaging. 

 

 

[KuruPrionz]

OK, I remember there being students and teacher's aides in the Photography Department in college telling me that "only REAL photographers just shoot with film and don't use Photoshop because that is not photography."

Now, AI is the demon. I still don't see how using a computer is not "writing with light." 

 

Maybe we should all go back to daguerrotypes? 😇

[KenElevenShadows]

There are a variety of types of images, and when you use an existing photo as the basis or influence for an AI-generated photo, then you obviously blur the line (although ultimately, the created photo is STILL nothing to do with light, but using a photo to inform how it renders the AI-generated photo).

 

AI should not be viewed as a "demon" necessarily. We all use AI. And many of don't even know it. Using a phone? Making a call in to a large company? Use the internet? Too late. You've already used AI.

 

I use AI to denoise my photos. Faster than me doing it by hand, and more effective than non-AI denoising. 

 

And regardless of what you or I think of AI, it's already out there, and there's no stuffing it back in the bag. I'll use the good stuff, ignore the bad, and hope that it doesn't become uber-sentient any time soon and start messing things up.