Lens-Artists #302 – Artificial Intelligence

The term AI or Artificial Intelligence makes us feel fascinated and a bit afraid at the same time – doesn’t it? We are fascinated at the possibilities and naturally, afraid of its misuse – like with so many other things that human beings have invented. But since this topic spans across a very vast area, for this post we’ll stay within the context of photography.

I think that when we started with digital photography, it was already the start of AI. In the case of film photography, the photographer is deciding a lot of things. But in digital photography, except for the subject and composition, the technical details are taken care of by the device when we focus and press the button (technically savvy and professional photographers do play around with some parameters but not everything). Today, the most important feature that people look for in a smartphone is – the camera! I’ve almost given up on my digital camera, considering how much more sophisticated the smartphone camera has become! I appreciate the technology especially while capturing scenes from inside a moving vehicle like a train.

And then if even after capturing 100 shots of the same scene, none of the pictures is popping like we want it to or if we want to tone it down it a bit, then we take the help of photo editing softwares, which are becoming smarter day by day, thanks to AI. And the sensibility of the photographer aided by AI, can turn a simple/otherwise boring picture into a stunning piece of art. I have not reached that level but I am very happy that I can just replace the sky and make some of my really hopeless shots because of a washed down sky, look a lot better instantly.

And I am also happy to be able to remove the power lines from a scene in post processing (still not easy when there are a ton of them but a few can be managed).

And just to experiment with generating an image from scratch with just a text prompt, I created this scene of an elephant in a desert.

My final thoughts on the topic are that I don’t see anything wrong in using AI to bring out the artistic vision of the photographer but I definitely find it wrong to use AI modified pictures to spread misinformation and generate negative sentiment. So viewers’ discretion is much more important than before.

Head over to John’s post for the challenge and the responses from other bloggers.

In this blog, I focus on sharing some of the photographs that I capture, often during my travels but also in the everyday life. If you’d like to read about my travels, you can find the stories on this blog – Reflections on the River.