I did not want to hijack the thread on the Sony exec commenting that phones may make the DSLR, et al, obsolete in a few years. I subscribe to a newsletter titled, "1440." It is an attempt to present minimally biased articles. it also has a subsection on various interesting topics...and I came across this.

In summary, deep learning AI programs can now allow a user to simply write / say what they want to see in a photo depiction or art piece and the deep learning can create that image. This has been accomplished and refined since first efforts in 2016. Imagine you want to see an image of a seascape, with a rainbow, with an elephant jumping from the water, with a feather held by its trunk. That is possible. The learning can also mimic famous artists. Want a wood block ink print (wrong term probably) piece of art / image of your farm house that mimics the style of a known artist? That is now possible. Want a photo of Ansel-like image but of a more modern time, place? That is probably possible.

So, as we look at a very limited view of phones replacing cameras, IMO, we are considering the wrong eventualities. Even if one wants to maintain a real image they took with an imaging device, imagine taking a very grainy, out of focus shot (or more likely a series of images / video) of some far off subject. Put it into a computer (or more likely the imaging device will have the conduit to the AI program) tell it to not only sharpen and refine the image, we can ask it to add trees, animals, monsters or what ever it is that we want.

Or going a step further, we take our grand kid to Disneyland and forget to take photos, they are destroyed or we chose to not take images, what ever. So we simply direct the AI to create an image of said child on the teacups at Disney...with grand pa sitting next to him. Did that scene occur? Nope. But the image will be created. And over time, when grand pa is dead, and the child now has grand kids, will that image be held up as fact as something that occurred? And it may take another AI program to decipher if that image is fake or real. There are images on FaceBook that are completely AI.

What does this mean for artists? Will people create things by hand or by a click of the shutter? Or will they simply direct AI to create it?

Is photography destined for the grave? I simply do not see how big bodies, big lenses can survive this. As someone mentioned, the ergonomics of cameras are preferable...but that is way too limited of thinking. What if the imaging device is not even hand held? What if it is simply an overlay on glasses or accomplished with the point of a finger? I don't know. I do believe that imaging will be changed. This video explains it quite well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVcsDDABEkM