Generative AI and The Death of Photography
Last week, German artist Boris Eldagsen was declared the winner of the prestigious Sony World Photography Awards. Soon after, he revealed that the photograph wasn’t a real photograph at all, instead, he had generated the prize-winning image using AI.
On his website, he wrote:
“AI images and photography should not compete with each other in an award like this. They are different entities. AI is not photography. Therefore I will not accept the award.”
The artist participated to see if competitions would be prepared for AI images to enter.
It seems they are not.
The winning image ‘The Electrician’, from the series Pseudomnesia, which is another term for false memory
The death of photography
The story is indicative of something bigger.
Some argue that generative AI inevitably leads to the devaluation of creativity and craftsmanship.
To Boris Eldagsen, when asked about it by The Guardian, it has not:
“I don’t see it as a threat to creativity. For me, it really is setting me free. All the boundaries I had in the past – material boundaries, budgets – no longer matter. And for the first time in history, the older generation has an advantage, because AI is a knowledge accelerator. Two thirds of the prompts are only good if you have knowledge and skills, when you know how photography works, when you know art history. This is something that a 20-year-old can’t do.”
The award-winning image might’ve been created with AI, nonetheless there was a human involved in producing it.
Okay, so the flame of creativity will keep on burning (for now).
It will still destroy some careers, potentially. Professional photographers are facing a rather immediate threat: text-to-image generation models like Dall-E and Midjourney can now generate output that is close to being indistinguishable from real photography in mere seconds. Should they be scared? Is the death of photography near?
Maybe. Possibly.
Similar questions must have haunted painters in their sleep when photography was invented in the 19th century. Upon first seeing a photograph, the famous French painter Paul Delaroche supposedly proclaimed: “From today, painting is dead.” History always repeats itself, with variations.
Enter the era of hyperreality
What we know for certain is that artificial images will further blur the lines between what is real and what isn’t: a gradual process that has been described by French philosopher Jean Baudrillard as ‘hyperreality’.
Hyperreality is the state of confusion that arises when what we generally regard as real and what is understood as fiction are seamlessly blended, removing any clear distinction between where one ends and the other begins.
It’s not something new, though. Generative AI is only the latest nail in reality’s coffin, I would say. Photoshop and computer-generated imagery (CGI) have blurred the lines significantly already over the past few decades. Not a single magazine cover or Instagram picture you see today is ‘real’.
It’s something that we will have to come to terms with: soon, we won’t be able to verify if any of the imagery that we’re seeing, online or printed, is real. Therefore, the best next thing to do is, by default, to assume that everything you see is manipulated in some shape or form if not proven otherwise.
It will not only change the lives of judges of photography awards. Downstream effects on global journalism, advertisement, film, and the fashion and modelling industry are to be expected.
‘Love’, also from the series Pseudomnesia
Final words
In the end, painting didn’t die in the 19th century, with the invention of photography. It didn’t die in the 20th and the 21th century, either.
What did happen was that photography went on to disrupt the world and its social order, creating completely new ways of looking, documenting, and engaging with each other and the world around us.
And so will generative AI. It will push the boundaries of what’s considered art, and photography, and change us in ways we can foresee and in many ways we cannot.
Jurgen Gravestein is a writer, business consultant, and conversation designer. Roughly 4 years ago, he stumbled into the world of chatbots and voice assistants. He was employee no. 1 at Conversation Design Institute and now works for the strategy and delivery branch CDI Services helping companies drive business value with conversational AI.
Reach out if you’d like him as a guest on your panel or podcast.
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