A.I. Is going to Kill Photography!
Like it or not, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is here. And it will disrupt EVERYTHING. But is that necessarily a bad thing? Let’s consider how it may impact photography.
Let me start by saying that I am by no means an A.I. expert. Nor am I an industry expert. I’m just a bozo with an opinion… pretty much like everyone else.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few months, you should be aware of the generative fill offered in the current Photoshop Beta. This A.I.-backed tool can shave a TON of time off of your editing workflows… or even create things that didn’t exist - and everything in-between. Many purists claim that these shortcuts are going to kill traditional photography professionals.
Those people were probably saying the same thing when DSLRs started replacing traditional film cameras. Or when “everyone” became a photographer with the advent of competent cameras in mobile devices. Or when computational photography started closing the gap between mobile cameras and REAL cameras, goshdarnit!
Will A.I. completely disrupt professional photography? I don’t see that happening… at least not in the short term. Brides will still want their weddings competently captured. Property photographers will have a leg-up in capturing the “feel” of a location. Ditto with product and landscape photographers.
I’m not saying that A.I. won’t eventually eat into large swathes of the professional market… but humans always seem to find a way to make their creativity shine in new and innovative ways. Rather than lamenting a new technology, let’s embrace it. Use it to enhance your craft. The future is bright.
What say you?
I could never get a shot at Edinburgh Castle without people in it…
…so I used generative A.I. to not only remove the people, but to expand the canvas - essentially a reverse crop! Is it perfect? No… but it’s darn good!
