Hip Coyote

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

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Recording what one sees is a bit different than creating what one envisions.

But somewhere along the line the AI has to be made aware of what the teacups at Disney look like.
Maybe give it a picture of the teacups?..........

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

The Politicians will love it.

Hip Coyote

totally different...the question is what will the masses do? What will become the norm? How will society respond or act? The video has some very interesting questions that I had not contemplated. And how will capturing an image, even if we do see it, be accomplished? A long telephoto lens or a capture in some other way? I think some other way.

And in a sense, we photogs kind of do this already...we sharpen, dodge, remove objects (content aware fill) , add objects, remove blemishes, etc.

Yes, the AI will have the teacups in there...as about everything else. I just checked...there are thousands, if not millions, of images of the tea cups on the internet that the system can search for and use. The other odd thing was that currently. AI has a western bias...given that it was created by people in the west. For instance, when the system is asked for a nurse, the image is usually female.

Those kinds of things have to be and will be worked out. I may try to create an image of me driving down the road in a 57 Chevy Convertible with Marilyn sitting next to me drinking a martini...

Of course, there is a very dark side to this as well..scary side.

Tdearing Loc: Rockport, TX

Recently began getting the daily 1440 email roundup and together with this site is a very good start of the day.

Architect1776 Loc: In my mind

Actually the teacups do not need to be photographed.
During design now things are designed in 3d and look real.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Society will pick up on the gee-whiz-bang new thing,
then it will wane.

Point was that the AI had to have been given a picture to begin with.
AI would not have been able to create the 'teacups at Disney' portion of the image without a picture.
So for AI to create anything, a picture has to have been taken prior.
A repository of images will have to be created...

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

I don't shoot what it looks like. I process it until it looks like I want.

Longshadow Loc: Audubon, PA, United States

Not that's a true artist.

BigDaddy Loc: Pittsburgh, PA

I'm sure it will have an impact, BUT, for me, the final product is not what gives me that tingly feeling. You can send me the worlds greatest picture of say a barn or a bird, and I might recognize it as such, but since it's not MY picture, no tingles.

Same with editing photo's, (my real hobby.) I get no pleasure from someone else editing my picture, and I dislike having a one click editor function replacing the sky, or making it a sepia image. I want to replace the sky myself, by hand, and with a sky that I took myself, not one I got from someone else. The AI you speak of that does everything for you is not going to float my boat, ever. I guess it could replace a paid photographer in some rare instance, but it would never, ever replace my reasons for taking and editing my own pictures.

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

I figure, let people do what they want. If someone wants to use a film camera with all manual settings, fine. If I want to shoot digital on Auto, fine. Someday, we'll be able to send a robotic camera out with the order to "Take pictures of pretty women." It will send the images back before it arrives home.

Ysarex Loc: St. Louis

While looking at this post and quickly looking at the linked video I am listening to my recording of Brahms Piano Trios by the Odeon Trio. I'm hearing how Leonard Hokanson, Kurt Guntner and Angelica May worked together and shared their emotional understanding and discoveries of these Brahms works to produce a unified interpretation and expression for me to experience.

I am fully confident that the day will never come when I would choose to hear this music preformed by a machine.

lamiaceae Loc: San Luis Obispo County, CA

That is pretty much how I feel.

47greyfox Loc: on the edge of the Colorado front range

Yup and if I can’t get “there,” I discard and try an another shot. We are, after all, the creator.

CHG_CANON Loc: the Windy City

Sometimes I arrive at just the right time when a thousand images will surely capture something.