Tech Byte – A pair of pros take on Artificial Intelligence in photography

Industry experts don't think the machines are taking over just yet

CHATTANOOGA, TN –

Since the invention of the camera over 200 years ago, photography has gone thru significant upgrades. It’s gone from Dark Rooms, to one-hour photos to digital.  Cameras have gone from big and bulky to sleek and some even pocket sized.

Artificial Intelligence has been unleashed on the world and some believe that, if left unchecked, we could end up in a late 90’s science fiction movie where the machines are taking over the world.

Professional photographer Nino Batista doesn’t quite think we’re headed for extinction, but he did take time to share his opinions.

“I’m not being naïve but I will say this.  There’s something to be said for the lack, when I say lack of the human element in AI generative developed things where it’s music or video or visuals or photography.  When I say there’s a lack of a human element what’s lacking is the authenticity. There’s nothing more in depth there right, it’s missing something. Right? It’s missing that extra,” Batista said. “Audio voiceovers that are incidental like when we’re seeing people fake a celebrity that’s a legal matter and that probably won’t last very long because the celebrity will jump in. But when it comes to incidental voice like video games? You have a bunch of dialogue? Can you imagine not having to hire a voice actor anymore? You can just have the video game say whatever the heck it wants to say in the middle of the game and it’s gonna sound completely fluid. Not completely new either because we have siri and alexa and things that talk back to us.”

Nino and I had a great conversation about the uses of AI that have been around much longer than most people realize.  AI has been used in some of our favorite songs over the last 40 years and even in the 80s people thought musicians would be replaced with machines, but in 2024 they’re still selling out concerts worldwide.

“That extra element is what’s missing in AI. It will replace some things, but actual art, is what, the actual art in my opinion that matters will never be replaced per se because there’s no intent and intent is human,” claims Batista.  “Computers can make beautiful things that are striking and useful but intent and purpose will never be replaced by that.”

For a different perspective we also talked to a world traveled digital artist hailing from Canada named Renee Robyn. She is known around the world for her digital art with a career that spans more than 20 years.

“I mean my perspective on it is that I’m firmly in the middle.  I have one foot that’s like absolutely terrified of what’s coming to us and the other foot is really, really excited about what’s coming.  The biggest thing that I think we have to be mindful of because this is Pandoras box has been opened and there is no way we can ever put this back,” says Robyn. “So the biggest way to combat that is education to understand and to teach people how do we spot AI. How do we train other AI models to spot when AI is being used. Do you remember early CGI and when people couldn’t figure out what was real and what wasn’t? But now of course we look back on it because we’re all educated and we’ve all seen things grow, CGI especially the early stuff is very obvious. I think the same thing, a similar thing is going to happen with AI over time. We’re going to see people who are writers who are looking at that and going yeah that was probably written by a robot and this is written by a human being.”

According to Renee “I try to always look at the technology as if I was a 16-year-old artist again and looking at this and using it as like what could I do with this? What does this tool allow me to do? But on the flip side it also cheapens the work because there’s a lot less effort that goes in to it. But I’m so fascinated about how the applications are going to go forward in animation. I’ve built my career I have a huge library of photo stock that I have shot myself and I’ve traveled all over the world to shoot it but now I can just go on to these computers and just type things in. But of course, none of these things that we render out of these AI models are copyrightable whereas the images that I create that I have that I’ve photographed all the pieces for are highly copyrightable material.”

Both of my friends had positives and negatives to say.  Nino even referenced that Photography was once accused of killing artists because no one would want paintings if they could have photographs but Andy Warhol sold paintings in the 60s and 70s over 100 years after photography was invented. While new technology has always frightened some and excited a few of us, Renee had one addition that I hadn’t considered.

“This is the type of technology that has the impact to change the world in the way the invention of the smart phone did. So having these devices where we basically carry around our collective knowledge of the entire world, the access to it in our pocket is bananas,” says Robin.  “We didn’t know with the creation of the smart phone that companies like uber were going to exist. Right? You know companies like these millions of apps that you can get. None of these would have existed without the smartphone. So, I think that with this technology we just have this shiny new device and everyone thinks whoa ‘this is so cool’ but the actual application and how this is really going to change the world is probably not for another 2-5 years and maybe faster than that.”

While AI is not necessarily new, it is here and more prevalent.  Neither of our experts here seemed to think that we’ll end up in a science fiction movie, as long as we don’t give the machines a means to produce their own energy and resources.  I think we can all agree that with all new things and new technology, education is the most important step in the journey.