AI Has Started Killing Photography and Photographers Are to Blame

I’m surely not the first person to say “you can’t fix stupid” and won’t be the last. I have to wonder how many photographers or self-identified nitwits calling themselves photographers can be defined as permanently unfixable. Building the engine of your own demise is hardly intelligent.

AI is indeed artificial, but it is not intelligent. It is a very complex and powerful set of algorithms to be sure, but smart it is not. All AI generated content is based on sample sets containing content created elsewhere. There are already AI engines basing their content on the output of other AI engines. As a long time IT professional, and once programmers, I know the truth of GIGO, aka Garbage In, Garbage Out. However, the majority of AI sample sets are drawn from the works of non-AI, meaning actual humans who did the real work, only to have it used without compensation or recognition.

I’ve tested this enough to know this is true. I’ve also read the documentation on how these sample sets are created.

Adobe is Evil

Perhaps lacking the religious connotations of horns, and a spiked tail, but every image submitted to Adobe Stock is fed into the sample sets for Adobe’s various AI projects. If you are a creative using Generative AI, you are actually using the work of someone else without compensation to that person for your work, which if stored in Adobe’s cloud or submitted to Adobe Stock becomes fodder for more AI images. Moreover, the US Department of Justice has opened a case against Adobe relating to its egregious cancellation charges and policies.

By the way. The header image was purchased from Adobe Stock. Adobe made money on this. It is an AI generated image, what Adobe Stock now LEADS with and that you have to opt out of by intentional action if you don’t want to see AI images. No creative got paid for this although the work of creatives was definitely used to create the sample set that enabled this image. Evil

Microsoft is Evil

Microsoft’s CEO of AI, one Mustafa Suleyman said live that all content on the Internet is open to use in AI Sample Sets. Microsoft’s own AI function called CoPilot says that doing so is copyright infringement, so even Microsoft cannot get its story straight. If Suleyman executes on his statement, any image or content on the Internet can be harvested for use in generating AI fake content from Microsoft.

Google is Evil

I won’t even get into the day that Google removed their commitment to “do no evil” from their company mission statement. Google has been using others content for years without recognition or compensation. It’s the same as that “do the work for the exposure” scam that continues to be perpetrated upon the stupid today.

Apple is Soon To Be Evil

Apple announced at the 2024 WWDC a partnership with OpenAI to bring AI to Apple products and services. Mac users can even now download a MacGPT client that follows the Apple UI rules. Future versions of macOS, iOS, WatchOS and TVOS will have AI capabilities built in. Where will the content for the sample sets to power this AI come from? Why from OpenAI of course who lifted it all without compensation or recognition already.

Wrapping Up

I support my opinions here with factual data, not random conjecture based on “feelings”. When wrong, I learn from and admit my errors. There are those who find facts and data to be anathema. Those people won’t come here so I don’t care.

My position is simple. If you consume AI, you accept being the food for AI. It’s a new way of saying Soylent Green. There remain very fine tools for photographers that do not require or use AI. Use them, but if you use and support AI, you are building the gun that will end your work. I accept that you the reader may disagree entirely with my argument. That is fair as it is your choice, hopefully informed by intelligence.

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