You are a small-town American doctor, and to your surprise, aliens have replaced your community. Plant spores have fallen from outer space, creating seed pods capable of making identical human copies. Pod people take on traits and memories along with unique personalities. Slowly, an invasion has started. Wait a minute, hold up, reverse that! Sounds scary, right?
Well, maybe if you were a kid in 1956. This is the plot of the 1956 sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatchers. You might be wondering why the correlation is to photography. It's more about fear these days and the takeover of AI. Is it something we should fear as photographers? That is a world where I can draw a line in the sand and say we should be afraid while simultaneously saying time will show there should be no fear. Remember this thing called the digital camera? More on that later.
Job Security
It’s coming for our cameras, right? Yes, it will. But only for a select few. I see this as clients who may go to AI instead of emailing us to discuss creating images for them. In the grand scheme of things, this is happening today. There are clients for everyone! Let's say a commercial photographer is talking to a client about a project for a local company. The company has a meager budget, and the photographer costs more than the budget allows. This client knows the photographer has fantastic work, so they called them. Ultimately, the client didn’t expect the budget required to create the work. They called another photographer with much less experience who charged the client much less to get the job.
Naturally, the company sacrifices quality in favor of the almighty dollar. That is where I see AI coming into play in the future. This type of client will never actually hire a photographer they need. This client will sit back, thinking they will fire up the computer and create the images using AI. You have to ask yourself, is this the client I want to work with? Actually, no. These clients make you want to hang up and throw in the towel. They are not profitable clients, and in actuality, they were never your clients! To be realistic, AI will make job security a little more challenging for some photographers, but not for all.
The photographers who will succeed in this new era, whether amateur or professional, will be the ones who learn to adapt to or embrace AI. This is not a threat but an opportunity for growth and innovation in our field.
Creativity
There have been arguments that AI will stunt the growth of creativity. It feels like the world has lacked thinking and creativity. AI can create images based on existing ideas and mix them into new images. While this is true, creating images will still take some creativity. You'll have to think about the image you want to make and articulate it clearly for AI to produce the image you envision. AI is still going to struggle in some ways. The biggest fear is that images will lack intentionality and originality. This will likely happen, as it takes a human being, not an algorithm, to create images with intention and originality. Every artist and photographer creates work with vision, depth, and a personal touch. These things can only be made by an individual, not an algorithm. This is where I also believe that AI lacks in creative endeavors. In the end, AI will not be able to defeat creativity or add personal vision to your photographs!
I used Adobe Firefly and asked it to create an image for a website promoting a protein powder. The image on the left was uploaded as a reference file, and the image on the right is from Adobe Firefly; as you can see, it's not perfect.
Dependance on Technology
We know we spend thousands of hours and years perfecting our craft and techniques as photographers. Skills are built over time through experimentation, failures, and successes. Will AI hurt our skill sets? Only if we let it. With so much automation being introduced into our editing platforms, from generative fill to noise reduction, we can’t fall into the trap of allowing automation to make our decisions. It will make our editing times faster, but we must remember not to get complacent. Once that happens, we will start to forget the skills we developed to make these adjustments manually. If AI makes these decisions for us, we lose these critical skills.
Market Saturation
I believe the most significant fears are ease of use and content volume. Remember the introduction of the digital SLR? Meteors were supposed to fall from the sky, taking out every photographer known to man. Your Uncle Joe was supposed to become the biggest wedding photographer in town, and professional photographers would be wiped off the face of the planet. Did that happen? The family chose Uncle Joe to photograph the wedding over a professional photographer. Some photographers went out of business, but not all, because they decided to hold on to the past and not embrace the future. Why did all this happen? Digital cameras became more accessible, and they were easy to use. The market became oversaturated, with new photographers charging little to nothing and giving away “free” sessions for their portfolios. Will AI do the same? Yes, but only because some photographers will hold on to the past and not embrace the future. Their demise will be due to their own actions, not because of AI.
AI will start to saturate the market with a large volume of content. We already have a market saturated with images, as billions of photos are uploaded to the Internet at any time. We already know that just as many awful photos are being posted as superb images. This will happen with AI as well. In the end, this is nothing new for our current market.
There are things we need to consider about AI that I haven't touched on. I can guarantee you that AI will force a good number of photographers to the sidelines permanently. However, this will be due to their own decisions more than the rise of AI. We can’t close our eyes and hope it goes away. AI is here to stay and will significantly influence the photography industry. The question is, will you be the one who closes your eyes wishing for AI to disappear, or will you embrace it and adapt your skills and business model to the changing landscape?
It’s always been difficult to predict how any new technology will be absorbed and alter the way things have previously been done ushering in its wake new ways of working. Future gazing does not have a good track record predicting such outcomes. I remember the early 90s pre-smartphone with dial up internet. No one predicted where all the various technologies associated with computing technology and software development would take us. Looking back at the release of the first iPhone who would have predicted the ‘app for everything’ situation we have now with information on any subject you care to mention just a couple of presses and swipes away or a simple voice command, hey Siri! Predicting how new technologies will interbreed and spawn unforeseen outcomes like the meteoric rise all the social media platforms along with YouTube is virtually impossible. AI may well be the same if it’s bred with some other breakthrough technologies that produces something totally new that we did not see coming. Imagining AI will follow some predictable linear progression is naive. We can’t see around corners nor can we see into the future, so you will have to wait till we get there.
To an extent way back in 1984 Douglas Adams predicted the smart phone in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/sep/03/revealed-how-hitchhikers-g.... Whilst I agree that AI today is hard to predict, I suspect that someone out there is doing just that.
Wonderful guy and wonderful books. He did in a manner predict the smart phone of sorts but what he was unable to predict was the breadth the detail and impact and thats is the difficult stuff to predict. Predicting the hardware is one thing but predicting the spin-offs and impact on society is quite another thing. While I have the greatest respect for Douglas Adams and his books and predictions he did not predict the impact of social media. AI and how it will eventually pan out is anyone’s guess. I remember how people said back in the day that the video recorder will be the end of cinema. What actually happened was the opposite. Cinema thrived, video stores were everywhere…and now they have all gone and no one saw that coming. The moral of the story is while you can guess and speculate all you want the number of interacting variables is just too complex to workout. As I said we can’t see around corners so we will just have to wait and see how it all turns out. That is of course if there is anyone left to care.
There is a difference with AI from other media. Take the example of movies. Remove the actors and suddenly you have no one to interview, no one to respect or admire, there is no life, you kill an entire support industry that impacts even commercials because the human connection doesn't exist. That's a depressing future prospect. I mean yes we get the lego movies and cartoons and so on but even there they hire lead actors to give some sense of real people we can often recognize from their voice. AI has nothing to connect to and even fake of an actor or his voice will have no value after just a few movies. I'm skeptical about the actual future of AI. I think it's always going to be a dark marginal option, but I also think that we are massively pushed by an industry to believe that it's what we want. But is it?
I agree with some of what you say but if that’s the case then it will have no future which zi very much doubt. Though the exact nature of the future I have little idea. My opinion is it’s too early to say how it will pan out. Things like this have the habit of veering off in unexpected ways that no one sees coming. As I keep saying we can’t see around corners and that’s where the future is.
Using AI to fill in parts of your image is the future.. or already in the past. Your second example of the messed up text on the bottle. 1) That's easily fixable in two ways. ... usually the software has text-correction (like Topaz AI does). That will make sure it doesn't mess up your text when it does 'Upscale', 'Denoise'. Btw... usually when the text is chewed up, it's not because you filled or added something, it's because of the 'Denoise-routine', or sometimes the 'Upscale-routine'. 2) Just copy and past from the original photo in that space. Wallah! It's also blown up larger in the 2nd photo, so they don't actually compare. The photo on the right is cropped. But if the two photos are different sizes, it might be more difficult, I'm sure I could get it done.
If theirs a real problem with AI, is when they use it to replace photo-journalism... and try to pass it off as real. Like when they take "real-people" and put them in comprising situations, and say they actually did those things using AI. But your first photo above, is a beautiful work of art. Why must anyone argue about that. Because it didn't come strictly from a camera? Think of Astrophotography... Does that work look like it does to the naked eye? almost never. Cause your naked eye can't see it anyway. What you see from the James Webb Telescope is all computer generated, and colored and artistically balanced to look the way they think you'll like to see it. There is nothing to complain about here either. Photography is art too.
On the job security, I think that most photographers have already surrendered their cheap clientele to who ever wants that. It’s still good to have a few hanging but I don’t consider my few as a true income, just a plus. It provides some diversity during slower time when repeat clients don’t have a need for you.
In product photography, I see AI as being super impersonal and sloppy. Some products require to show their imperfections in the images for example. Too clean because of AI might be “a savings”, but product returns can be logistic nightmare and complaints on public sites can end up being thousands of time more expensive than the original “saving”. That’s what some companies learn too late.
AI automation might be good sometimes, but yet again, it might require supervision too. So the question is how much time does someone need to spend fixing AI. If you need to hire staff to supervise AI, what's the point? Automation like actions in PS are probably more predictable and as fast and may often not require reviewing of the processed work. If there is not much difference between actions and AI processing, I would definitely skip AI. I feel lots of AI is actually not AI but a gimmick to sell you extra services. I don’t get Gemini in or as a search engine for example. Can’t make sense out of it.
Market saturation is an old thing now. It’s still not about the media used, but about the actual service and the quality provided. No camera or AI will do that job alone and turn it into an income. Most serious clients have already searched AI extensively and figured out what they can get from it or how much it is actually slowing them down. That’s acquired, up for review any time of course, but AI is just part of a process and if you sell product, the saving is actually negligible in value. Often the return from photography is instant because when a photographer is hired the result is it self instant, approved and final and if well thought won’t affect any further step of the rest of the process to get the expected sell. I think AI can help but I don’t believe that AI is a reliable solution as a from scratch alternative to photography. Depends on the product of course.
What I do see with AI now, is a threat to video. I have met my share of start up video people and right now, they seem to have figured out that it takes equipment, a team and a lot of knowledge to make it for acceptable to serious income. Now, with AI, the threat is one notch up and the volume of needed video today is definitely a budget issue. I've been told by clients that photography is very cheap compared to video many times over the years. I'd say that clients are more concerned about video cost alternatives than photography. Video has also a drastically much shorter use time than photography. I expect video to be the real big AI target in the future, not photography but photography is a cheap way of train for the big picture. Lots of the guys I have known in the last few years have been retrieving to 8-5 income and have side photo and video income from time to time.
Another thing I see right now are search engines where when you do a search all the advertisers massively come first and the viewer has to dig through more layers to get what they want. I don’t rank good because I don’t advertise, don’t pay for adds or spend much time improving my rating, but I have seen more people reaching me because they can figure out what type of experience I have and turn those few contacts into instant income. I don’t know that AI has anything to do with it, but fact is, none of those new clients were searching for automation in any form but asked forspecific skills and dug pretty hard to find me.
AI is nothing to worry about when it comes to taking money from photographers with regards to Weddings and stuff. What is really taking money from photographers is: 1) The people with the phone who think and say, they can do it just as good. And we must admit in some ways they can to an extent. 2) The demand for what is called a good photo is higher and lower both at the same time. Meaning. Those of us in the photography circles may look at a photo and go... "oh thats terrible, or that needs correcting.. or whatever you can think of a photographer would say". The requirements actually have probably increased over the years as technology has increased. Then there is the affect of people who just take photos all the time, and post them regardless of their so-called quality. But that has affected all of us. Meaning the public in general no longer really cares as much about 'Quality' anymore. To give another example: You might remember the time, where many people had Large quality speakers in their house, and still some do, like myself. But now its harder and harder find people willing to buy quality speakers. People are satisfied with buying a sound-bar, or worse just watching a movie on their phone now. This attitude affects photography as well. Meaning just snapping photos with a phone, no editing and throwing up on social-media.. is good enough for many, and they don't need to pay some guy thousands on a gig. Some may not even care to know the difference between what they would get when they do pay the guy or not. Because they can no longer care to know, or even tell the difference. For one because they are often not looking at printed editions of photos, they are looking at dumb cut-down Instagram versions. So I don't think its going to be AI that cuts into your photography budget. If anything AI will improve a photographers arsenal of things that one performs for a client.
Today, AI is in the toddler phase and in 100 years, or less and AI will replace photographers by reducing their customer base. We have seen automation replace many factory workers, software developers (AI code generation), management decision making, etc.. There will be less well paid people who can afford a photographer.
Robots have been in place for years and will continue to improve. I no longer need my wife to help me connect my truck and trailer because of all the cameras and alarms. The software will keep the truck from running off the road or crossing into other lanes. There is R&D of autonomous cross country freight trucks and implantation is near. The “last mile” will be more difficult to overcome but robots will eventually replace your FedEx or UPS driver.
Yes, there will be new employment opportunities with new skills needed but what will the income levels be, and will they have the income to hire a photographer for their wedding or events? Will new cameras have the ability to provide in-camera composition advice/action? Will our eye(s) gain the ability to record what we see? I had my lenses replaced because of cataracts. My wife has stints in her eyes to counteract glaucoma. What’s next?
I don’t worry too much about today but I do worry about my grandkids and great grandkids. Hopefully, new high paying employment opportunities will fill the void, BUT …
Doom and gloom? Hopefully, AI will allow my great grandkids to enjoy a simpler and robust life at little or no cost.
G.
Retired software developer.
You make great points! Thanks for the comments
Trying to predict the situation in 100 years from now is a fools errand.
I can’t get enough of AI, bring on more of it. All it does is elevate the market for real photographers who produce authentic work, which suits me perfectly. Just like people who prefer custom-tailored suits or spend half a day waiting on the perfectly smoked barbecue, there’s a reason craftsmanship will always holds value. Honestly, if AI makes people happy, great. But personally, I couldn't care less about the rest of the noise.
I think we will see Ai improve photography for he most part. Especially in software.
Let me be clear: if people would actually invest time and some money into honing real photography skills instead of taking the lazy route, AI wouldn't even be a conversation subject. All you're doing is looking for a shortcut, expecting something else to fix your lack of ability. Use AI if you want, but don’t kid yourself, AI IS not improving photography; it's dumbing it down. Honestly, I am glad you didn't ask me how I *really* feel about AI. LOL
LOL! How do you really feel?
I have been watching this unfold for awhile and here are my thoughts. I will digress slightly and compare it to other things we thought that CDs would kill the record Stores in fact it was the CD that died. In fact record players are now so popular.. We thought the DSLR would kill the film camera now film cameras are way more popular than DSLR. We thought that the mirrorless camera would kill off all other Photography.... In fact, the phone is probably the most popular form of Photography now not the mirrorless camera. Retro cars are still very popular. In fact many car clubs are full of retro cars and people love meeting and talking about their retro experiences. If we think of Photography as the retro experience now we change the way we look at it. People still want an experience with the photographer they want to meet somebody and they want to Connect. It is not just about the final image. Fast food and restaurants now produce food that is delicious but is at wholesome No cooking your own wholesome food is the way to go for our health and well-being and money as well. Okay they are my analogies but I will come back to the key question. I think AI has some benefits in certain situations. I remember shooting a wedding once and unfortunately two family members were very sick that week and couldn't attend. I went to where they were a few days later and took some photos of them dressed up how they would've been dressed and then I was able to place them into many of the group shots because the Family wanted that that was a positive case of AI use because they were distraught and even traumatised that they couldn't be there. AI is not the problem. It's the way we use it often I see posts complaining about social media and how addictive is what I say to people is the platform is the platform. It is the way you use it. On the surface of it you might think all these AI companies are making millions of dollars but they're not. They've got a small piece of the market and that will probably stay pretty constant but I think it's up to us as photographers to become creative become dynamic and work on our relationships. If you think about it up until now we've never had any competition we've had other photographers to compete against but in terms of another source that can create something similar we've never had that so you can sit in the corner and cry about it and bemoan the fact that AI is taking over the world or you can sit there and go right. How am I going to compete and do something different? How do I become more dynamic? AI will not kill Photography because I gave numerous examples at the beginning of my post as to why I think eventually AI will slow down because people will see how saturated and fake it really is. Imagine if you walked into someone's home for a barbecue on the weekend and you saw a beautiful image on the wall and you said to the person where is that photo taken? And the person then says oh that's AI do you think that's gonna be a very long conversation? Imagine if they said no that is Joe's mountain for instance. Wow how do you get there? we should go for a trip there see the different conversation that a real photo can evoke.
Thank you for the comments!
"I will digress slightly and compare it to other things we thought that CDs would kill the record Stores in fact it was the CD that died. "
Great point!
I just look at how many people are going back to film cameras and even buying Fujifilm gear as well wanting the retro look I don't think Photography will die if anything it was probably the kick in the pants that we needed to up our game a little bit and be more creative we can almost be AI in our look of our photos. We can do some intentional camera movement. We can do all sorts of things with our camera. We're gonna have to bust out some new moves and that's okay because I think that is going to challenge us.
I am on an advisory board for a professional photographer program, and we have been discussing people going back to film. To be honest, I wanted a Fuji just for what you mentioned: the retro look!
Long run and for tweens hoping to become full time photogs, be cautiously optimistic but ready to adapt. Long in the tooth photogs will be fine (this is all based on my own experiences and preferences, mind you).
Ultimately in the immediate to near-term:
- Portraiture: While all the AI in the world might be able to control when we piss but people still love knowing they've been somewhere, taking and seeing photos of themselves there --> Collaborate
- Landscape: I can Google and bring-up any place, but I still want to visit, myself and support those to portray it differently --> Explore
- Fine art & everything else: Those who can and will be willing to pay for a story behind the art, will continue to do so --> Market
Long-term
- More experience focused. We aren't alone as photogs, just as 3D printers threaten those who work with more tactile mediums.
- Trends: I know this is a bad word for some on here. However, regardless of your stance on what's "trending," it is a reality that impacts some photogs, so it's worth recognizing and not flipping a middle finger toward if we're to support the community.
Love the philosophical premise for this article but don't know that I have enough whiskey stockpiled to discuss it. Cheers and here's to tomorrow.
A whiskey fan, I already like you!
Trends: I know this is a bad word for some on here. However, regardless of your stance on what's "trending," it is a reality that impacts some photogs, so it's worth recognizing and not flipping a middle finger toward if we're to support the community. Great point! I am not sure why some people follow trends!
In all the discussion arguments people often leave out one thing. AI and other technology causes an inflation on being stunned by a spectacular image. That seems a pity at first (hard to live up to as a real photographer) but I'm sure there's a positive effect too. I think photo's with real emotion and soul become more valuable. To compare: as a movie fan the last years i'm hardly impressed anymore with "spectacular scenes" and drawn more to authentic movies i can feel.
Another, more negative, thing i don't hear in the discussions is the change of the creating process itself.
Creativity has always been a process of exploring, playing, get rid of the noise in your life and becoming one with the subject. AI "creation" can in many cases be more of a selection process, done by a different kind of person.
Imo there's a lot of value in the classic way of creation (with then human mind). The whole world we live in is based on human creativity. I wonder if Leonardo DaVinci would have felt the need to come that far as an artist and scientist in a world with instant ideas.
I think AI will replace anything unless it can't replace it (a specific person or moment), instead the other way around (only looking for AI when we have a difficult problem to fix). And it will be done by a different breed. For the sake of money and not for the love of creating.
The good news: the essence of creativity, the search, can always be done for yourself. And maybe for a small audience who values the authenticity. And maybe there will be a renaissance niche for real.
"To compare: as a movie fan the last years i'm hardly impressed anymore with "spectacular scenes" and drawn more to authentic movies i can feel." this is a great point! I didn't realize this until you commented and I feel the same these days! Thanks for the comment! You made some great and thoughtful points
AI isn't going to ruin it - a way of generating realistic imagery isn't a replacement for photography and never will be. But it's going to (and already has) made my life easier as a photographer. Things like culling, editing, captioning, retouching, all the boring grunt work.. AI can take care of that. I enjoy shooting, I don't enjoy the time spent at a desk.
100% agree!
And if you think about it from another angle and I've made this point on YouTube and a few other Photography forums is that the camera itself has a heap of AI features built into it if you don't think that cameras don't have AI built into them you are kidding yourself especially some of the later models like the Canon one that can now pick out different people in a scene so that's a positive benefit of AI.
You are correct! Ai is so many places we don't realize. If you call a gas station chain here in the Midwest to order a pizza, AI takes your order!
We have to get used to it in terms of being what it is and work with it in certain situations as well
Yeah, the same people are arguing against the use of AI, are probably still using DSLRs from 10+ years ago...hehe. Maybe still good work and good cameras though. Just saying that AI is another tool in the belt.
AI is a lot more than just another tool for the photographer to use in making a picture. You may not think it has any impact on photographers if you're not selling your images. But how would you feel if some guy in the Philippines created an image (using an entirely AI image generator) of a sailboat and sunset on Ford Lake, and sold it to Eastern Michigan University for $1? Especially after you had spent an evening driving to that location, using your expensive camera gear and years of experience to create the same photo, but the university couldn't quite justify your $100 price.
That's exactly how technology enables high priced skilled labor to be replaced with low cost unskilled labor. The industrial revolution started the process and it keeps repeating through any industry vulnerable to technology. How many weavers do you know hand spinning yarn into fabric? Digital cameras have already had a huge impact on a person's opportunity to make a decent living in photography. Everybody with a cellphone in their pocket is now a photographer. Photographers are blind to think AI won't further erode their ability to use previously exceptional skills to earn a reasonable living. Generative AI is not even really photography, but labels are immaterial. Every photo in your portfolio could be created by a relatively unskilled AI operator... certainly without ever having travelled to the places you have. Computational photo software will undoubtedly find its way into dedicated camera bodies, lowering the cost of good quality images. At that point your education and experience in photography up to now will be worth peanuts.
I'm not really arguing for or against AI... I'm too old to care about it myself. But if I were starting a career in any sort of graphic arts, I'd do a lot more than kiss it off as just another additional tool to fix a boring sky.
There are several levels of AI involved here. AI image creation... Or AI to correct things or fill things in your picture that you took. I'm actually ok with both scenarios. Interesting you picked a spot so close to where I live. Did you look me up? I actually have some shots from Ford Lake. Could the guy using an AI generator do a better job maybe... and I'm ok with that.
I obviously do a lot of the former. I use AI to correct things or fill things in my own images.
You have your city and pictures in your Fstoppers header and portfolio. Not having ever heard of your city, I looked it up on Google maps. I'm a curious person. I don't think it's that far into the future when entirely AI generated images will be site specific. I can already see about any location I want in Google Street View. Billions of photos are tagged with a location. I don't anticipate a huge leap before AI can create an accurate photo from scratch of about any place on the planet. I have heard of photographers who think the best way to derail AI is to purposely tag photos with a wrong label so that it creates inaccurate pictures. Of course that would take a lot of people in agreement to do such a thing which I can't see happening.
I'm sure AI generation is already partially based on public Instagram and other available sources. And the computer-generator randomizes and tries to build data. I've noticed when it builds faces, it seems to build faces that "Almost" look like famous movie stars, or a mixture of two famous people. That seems to be what it is doing, at least for now. So if people took photos of landmarks it could grab those sources, and compile a new picture, maybe even improve it. I was just saying below, is what will put you out of business faster than this concept... is already buried in my subtext above. The guys doing instagram, and so many people playing with their phones, and the oversaturation of pictures. No one caring about printed good photos. That is what will put you out of business faster than AI.
Here's that Ford's lake shot, or at least houses across from a park. I'm not sure the lake is big enough for Sail-Boats.
AI machine-made images lack human intent. But to my point above, commercial buyers may not care. If an image created by a machine serves the need, costs less, and can be made in a matter of minutes, then that's where the work will largely go. Of course AI generated headshots can produce some bizarre results... at this stage in its development. But in several research studies, many people could not tell the difference between a photographer's work and an AI generated image. AI has certainly fooled a number of competition judges. So for millions of people, an inexpensive AI headshot made without the cost and delays of hiring a photographer is an attractive option. For those people who want to spend several hundred dollars and wait for an appointment, and get a more authentically human image, there will probably always be a market for that too. As there is for any hand-made, high-cost product. But I'm not sure I'd want to head down that career path if I were starting all over again.
I was all for AI being a part of photo editing software like Photodiva and others, but now that AI images enter photography competitions and win or people use them for malicious purposes, I'm not so sure. It's still pretty difficult to say if it's for the best or not, but I'm pretty positive that actual photography crafted by actual photographers will stay and will probably valued even more. AI also creates music now but I can't imagine myself wanting to listen to something that's written without personal experience behind it, and same goes to photography.
I agree. It may take some time, but people will start to value real photography!
What is real photography? Those people making a photograph such as you or I will undoubtedly value the image's authenticity. Being in a place and experiencing the process of photography as we have traditionally known it will always be paramount. But from the day Photoshop was invented, using its tools to edit a few things here and there raised the question of whether a photo represents something real, or not. Many of us limited Photoshop to editing exposure and contrast, occasionally removing a power line or other distracting element in order to improve the picture somewhat artificially. Digital technology opened the door to the debate over the definition of photography.
Fast forward a few years and software has been specifically created for replacing dull and boring skies with dramatic eye-catching ones. But unlike a photo of the Empire State Building rising out of the plains of Nebraska, a fake sky would probably be viewed as real. My point is that reality is not black or white. Fake images are being made more and more to influence public perceptions, quite often dishonestly. Many photos are an outright lie meant to deceive. Others are just a little white lie in order to improve a photograph. So where's the dividing line between one and the other? What's real?
To my point earlier, commercial photography buyers, including product photography, headshots, and in some cases art, won't care whether it's real or entirely AI generated from text inputs. I sell photos to companies that in turn place art in large commercial businesses like hospitals and hotels. Never once has anyone asked what kind of camera I use or whether I edited my images in Photoshop, or to your point... if the image is real. It either fits within the style and design of their project at the right price, or it doesn't. And after each successive technological innovation, image quality gets better and the cost drops.
I wish you were right in your prediction, but I've seen too many impersonal changes in the way products or services are delivered to have much hope for reality staying the same as we know it. I'm old enough to remember the doctor coming to our home to check on my illness, and the service station attendant pumping our gas and checking under the hood. I despise huge superstores for buying groceries, but my opinion hasn't slowed them from taking over the landscape in our towns and cities. Trying to get the right price for my lettuce at a self checkout station feels so robotic and impersonal. Very little, unfortunately, to me seems real any more but that's life as time moves forward. Photography is no exception.
--- "AI also creates music now"
I loathe those with a passion. I block them on YouTube whenever I come across them.
Here's my point of view after thinking about it more. 'Edward Kunzelman', brought up the scenario, and must have looked up my local city 'Ypsilanti', that is the concept of creating AI-generated images for a local College. Ok. Well, what happens when you get down to specifics. Even the human got it wrong, let alone the computer. He thought of putting AI-Generated Sailboats on the water, but the moment the system would generate that, they would be rejected anyway, because they wouldn't look like 'Ford-Lake'.
Now 'Lake-Michigan', much farther west... sure. My point is that in order to have 'Specific looking' generated images, they would need to at least appear to match what the user intends to be looking for. For the landscape field... I would think the concept of 'AI-Generation' would need to have built-in mapping templates, and on-top of that, allow the change-of-time to be built in as views change. We are far-off of that concept. To keep on this concept: My meaning is, aren't we still far away from asking a computer to generate known landscapes, especially one like 'Ford-Lake'? Wouldn't the image just look like any-other Lake if you asked the image generator. If in 'Edwards' scenario... They would more likely want terrain that we can match to what is known about the area.
So again AI is not yet going to take away the guy's money being paid for the camera shots.
As I've stated what is taking away your money is the people who don't think you need a real-camera or equipment anymore. Just have friends shoot it with their phones and post. That is going to take away business much faster, or already has faster than AI.