The "AI" Controversy

Since the dawn of man, we have sought to express ourselves and the things that had meaning in our lives by the tools and methods that we had access to... whether it was crude stick figures drawn in the sand or on cave walls, or with sophisticated AI software. As humans, we have always felt the need to document... our feelings, our surroundings, our loves, our beliefs... everything that held any place of importance to us.

When I was a little boy, my parents used a small box-type "brownie" camera. The images that amazing little thing captured form the historical backbone of our family today. It was nothing but a box, with a primitive, rudimentary lens, and a film holder.

In high school, I bought my first "single lens reflex" camera... an old Minolta SRT-101. Loved that camera. It was a huge technological advance compared to the "Brownie" cameras or Polaroid cameras of the '60s.

Cameras continued to evolve, as did art itself. Traditional artists found that it was easier to use a projector, known ubiquitously as an "Elmo," instead of having to constantly draw from live subjects. Some thought that was "cheating," and questioned whether art created from such a means was "true art."

The art world "got over it," and moved on, embracing the new technology.

Around 2000, the photography world moved into the "digital era." My first digital camera was the Fuji Finepix S3 Pro. LOVED that camera. 6 megapixels. I produced billboards with that thing. Body and glass by Nikon, sensor by Fuji. Critics said it was "cheating," that it would never rival the quality of film. It not only "rivaled" the quality of film, it far surpassed it with a greatly expanded dynamic range.

Retouching used to be done on negatives... with a fine-tipped brush and a strong magnifying glass. It took years to master, and was a painstaking and time-consuming process. Traditional Master Photographers were vicious in their criticism of Photoshop when it came out. Until they weren't, and eventually, all of them quietly succumbed to its time-saving capabilities and features.

Photoshop advanced at lightspeed, and other highly advanced systems were born. Suddenly, it was almost impossible to work professionally as a photographer without having a solid background in ever-improving editing software and post-production.

Through all of these changes, the response to criticism was consistent... and consisted largely of the measured assurance that the final image, the "thing being represented," was still the product of the artist/photographer's mind and creativity. The tools may change, but the basic driving force behind the image was always the artist. The human eye. Human imagination.

Now that software has taken a quantum leap in functionality and scope, the critics are at it again, this time decrying the latest leaps into our ability to create art reflects our eye and mind more effortlessly than before as being "cheating."

Why? Because the branding changed. Instead of "advanced editing software," we started calling it "AI," or "Artificial intelligence." And people lost their minds. "That's not art" they screamed. Same song, different verse.

And the irony is that the response of precisely the same. And it is just as germane. Whether you call it "advanced editing" or "AI," the reality is exactly the same. It is a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less.

As an artist, I have images in my mind that I want to create, and to create in a certain way... a way that evokes an emotional response... a way that brings to life and gives form and structure to the ideas and the visions that exist only in my mind. Just like normal photography uses the sophisticated tools of image capture to create those very same images. As a tool. Nothing more. Nothing less.

No doubt, in the future we will continue to be blown away by advances in the way that we bring our creative products to a form that others can enjoy. There will be new tools. New methods. New processes. And there will always be the steadfast critics who never fail to decry the "new stuff" as "cheating."

And ultimately, we'll all move on.