AI has been on just about everyone’s lips for the longest while now. Not only has it been on everyone’s lips, but it has now also found its way onto just about everyone’s smartphone / computer/ workstation. Not a single person I speak to about this has not started integrating AI into their workflow in some way, shape or form, even if it is just as simple as using ChatGPT to help formulate emails. I am also one of those people.

As a photographer, I would be lying if I said that my initial reaction to things like Midjourney was not one of astonishment, as well as utter fear of this ‘machine’ replacing me and my entire industry. I was completely convinced that my job was now gone, and well, I might as well start resharpening those old bartending skills from 15 years ago. My view has changed somewhat, although not totally. I am still quite fearful that my job, as well as those of countless other creatives in the “non-moving-visuals” such as graphic designers, illustrators, and others, will be replaced in time, at least in part. The video folks will have their jobs taken only a few years later. I kid. Or do I?

10 minutes online and this is the result one can get.

When I first encountered “AI Images”, they were mostly nothing more than existing photographs, badly manipulated. These generally took the form of filters on Instagram and the like. They were filters that would make people look older, or younger, or like a monster, or completely different. They were, however, still simply manipulations of real photographs taken by real people. Nothing to worry about there.

The first batch of images made from whole cloth by AI that hit the internet were still rather shit, and clearly gave themselves away as having been made by someone (or something) that wasn’t quite sure what she (it) was doing. This evolved pretty rapidly, and not all that long after, I started seeing images pop up on my feed that started to look rather good, or well executed at least. The images often seemed overly stylised and somewhat unreal. Not completely fake, but like they had been overly processed or edited by an overzealous beginner.

And then the images started to pop up that made the ol’ butthole pucker a little. These were images that, although still flawed, were coming disturbingly close to what a real and talented photographer would produce. They had depth, they looked realistic, they flowed, they were a harmonious image. And when these images started showing up, depicting cars in far-off landscapes, well lit and framed, that was when I started stressing for real.

Some of the images can feel a little generic, but the quality is still ridiculous.

For a little background context, I have been following the progress of AI for quite some time, but on another front. I am quite fascinated by consciousness, the mind, as well as the human and animal experience. I have done a fair amount of reading on the topic, and as I like to do, have listened to dozens (if not more) of hours of people with various titles and qualifications discuss the merits and potential downfalls of an artificial general intelligence, and what it could mean for the future of mankind. And if I’m honest here, I am rather pessimistic that AGI will be a net positive for our species.

So, being the pessimist that I am, I was not especially keen to see this demon swoop in and take my job. I was going to have none of it. The problem is that there is nothing, and I mean nothing, that I can do about it. It was, and is, a matter of accepting it and either rolling with it, or being left behind. For the longest time, I refused to even entertain the idea of this nonsense filtering into my life. This slowly changed as I realised more and more that AI was here to stay.

I spent more and more time with Midjourney, playing around and learning how to “prompt” the machine into giving me the result I was after. Turns out that it’s not particularly difficult to get great looking images. At some point in the last couple of months, Adobe also introduced Photoshop Beta, which now includes its own AI. This allows the user to use what is called “generative fill”, which means I can select an area of my image, and ask Photoshop (PS) to do something with it. This can be as simple as making a selection of an area and asking PS to remove an object, or it can be used to extend your image edges, effectively extending the image beyond the boundaries, creating pixels where there was nothing before. This is, undoubtably, a very effective tool to have in your arsenal when you are a photographer or retoucher. There are also a host of other things that the PS AI can help with that can increase your speed by many factors. That cannot be a bad thing, can it?

Aside from the cars themselves being wrong, and not true to the real thing, the image quality can be out of this world.

While listening to various experts and non-experts talk about the near-term future of AI, one thing was repeatedly said: AI will not completely replace human jobs, but what will happen is that it will create a chasm between those people that are using AI in their jobs, and those that aren’t. That, the people say, will be the defining difference. So, what is a person to do? Sit on the sidelines and let the world speed ahead until it’s well beyond you, or grab a hold of this rapidly evolving technology, and hope it drags you with it.

I’ve chosen, somewhat kicking and screaming, the latter of the two options. I have embraced Photoshops AI tools, and am already seeing how it has cut my editing time (for some parts of the workflow) by a factor of ten. It really can be that helpful. I have also kept playing with Midjourney, to hopefully not let that aspect of this evolving industry completely pass me by. If I want to continue to be a player in this industry, I need to move with the flow and embrace the newest technologies that hit the market.

At this point I have to say that I am still not a fan of the “AI Revolution” as it is being called. I am still convinced that this (AI as a whole, not only the generative AIs used in many creative industries) is not going to end well for us as a species. But in a world that is becoming ever more competitive I need to go with the flow or be left behind, even if I believe that the flow is what is eventually going to leave all of us behind, or worse.