Alex Mustard turns his attentions to the thorny issue of AI images
Photographs by Alex Mustard
They are just two letters, but they have caused turmoil and even fear to run right through the photographic community. AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is quickly permeating many aspects of our lives.
AI programmes would already be perfectly capable of writing this article and illustrating it. And it would do so in seconds -and I am sure a percentage of the audience would prefer it!
As a creative I’m staying well away from that slippery slope, even when I am on deadline day with the editor! As photographers, we want our images to be believed and if you, as an individual, start to mix AI content into your portfolio, soon nobody will believe you when you get that amazing shot.
To quote Warren Buffett, something I was never expecting to do in a photo column, ‘it takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to loose it’.
This month’s column is a departure from the normal theme of teaching, but this is such a hot topic, and I feel it is important to cover it.
AI driven programmes can write books, create movie trailers, produce paintings and instantly generate an underwater image of anything you wish to type into the prompt. This is a major area of concern for photography competitions, which are highly popular in our community.
Photographers enter these contests to measure their skills with a camera and compare who saw the coolest stuff on their dives this year. They don’t want to be competing with a computer that is generating photo-realistic imagery of creatures and scenes that have never existed.
It would be easy to dismiss this as fantasy. Easy to think that nobody is going to go to the trouble of entering a photography contest with an image not created with a camera. Think again. When I got home from the Go Diving Show this year, I went straight into judging the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation Environmental Photography Award.
This is a contest that aims to reward photographers who bring back images that raise awareness of the environmental challenges around the world. It is worthy stuff. The prizes aren’t massive, but the contest helps the images and the stories behind them to really get out there. It is not the sort of place you’d expect people to try and hoodwink the system…
Yet there, in the final round, was a stunning shot of a manatee that everyone, at first glance, liked. I was the only underwater specialist on the panel and there was just something not quite right with the shot. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first, but on closer inspection there were small details that were wrong, like the flippers being in the wrong place.
The photo didn’t go into the final round. We discovered after judging that it had been entered by a well-known AI artist, presumably not planning to pretend it was a photo – but to announce it was an AI image after the results came out to fuel a debate.
While we were lucky to spot the imposter, other contests were caught out. A few weeks later, Boris Eldagsen’s image ‘The Electrician’ took first place at the Sony-sponsored World Photography Organization’s Awards.
The image was created entirely in AI. The German photographer refused to accept the award, saying that he entered it to raise the issue. ‘I was just making a test to see if they were aware — like a hacker who hacks a system not to exploit it, but to see if there are weaknesses’.
The story was big news. Boris hoped to start a debate about what are the bounds of photography -and succeeded.
Both the public looking at the winners and the photographers competing want to know that the playing field is level and the rules are enforced. Photography contests have reacted universally, saying using the creativity of AI software to generate all or even part of the frame is not.
For the Underwater Photographer of the Year, which, ahem, opens for entries at the start of November, we’ve changed our rules, modified our judging process and brought in some strong deterrents to keep the contest fair for photographers and photography.
UPY has long had a rule that the camera that captured the image needs to be at least partly underwater which, of course, rules out AI images. But we now also specify in the rules that while we allow standard processing, using AI software to generate entire pictures or to modify parts of photos is strictly forbidden.
We’ve always reserved the right to check the RAW files of our winners, but have only asked for them for images we specifically want to check. From this year we will now check all the RAW files of all shortlisted images before confirming placings.
This will slow down how quickly we can let you know how you have done, but hopefully it gives you confidence as an entrant that you know you are being judged against photographers, not artificial intelligence.
Finally, we will also have a lifetime ban for anyone trying to dupe the contest and cheat the other entrants by entering AI-generated images.
Outside of the world of contests, AI images aren’t universally outcast. Magazines, like Scuba Diver, won’t use them, they want real images to illustrate news, reviews, travel features and more. The same is true of most editorial use in books, magazines, newspapers and online.
A consequence of this is that editors are more careful where they source their images, meaning it is more important than ever to be well regarded for the honesty of your photography. Sadly, I fear that this will make it harder for new talent to break in.
In the past it would be really exciting when a new name appeared on the scene with a great portfolio. Nowadays, the first reaction of photographers and editors will to be suspicious.
AI images fare much better in the advertising world. This was once the most-lucrative market for photographers because brands always want a totally original image to represent them. In the old days that meant commissioning a photographer to create it, paying lots of money for their time.
For the last decade though, most of these images are created more cost effectively by Photoshop artists, combining and modifying inexpensive stock images into unique imagery. AI is likely to put everyone out of job, as it is able to create endless originals, inexpensively, at the touch of the return button.
AI image generation is clearly here to stay. And where the authenticity of the shot really doesn’t matter for the end user, then AI is likely going to take a large share of the photography market. Photography will still have a value in all the places where the honesty of the work remains important to its use, for example in media.
Photography will also be in demand where the human creative process is a key part of the appeal of the work, such as in fine art prints. Which brings me back to Warren Buffett. AI means that the integrity of your work as a photographer has never been more important.
For this reason, photography contests are perhaps more vital than ever as a platform for photographers to showcase their skills. And as a space where the audience and future clients can enjoy amazing imagery that they can believe in.
This article was originally published in Scuba Diver UK #79
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