Years ago, I wrote a blog post where I attempted to clarify my stance as a creative on photography tools that use artificial intelligence (AI).
Reading that article again, I don’t think I was especially successful in making my point.
To paraphrase what I was trying to say: if you don’t want to use AI tools, and they aren’t part of a process that makes you feel creatively satisfied: don’t use them. Their existence need not take away from your practice. They need not have an impact on what being an artist means for you personally, and at least for now, it’s generally not hard to opt out of using generative AI tools for tools in certain popular photography software. (You can also opt out of “content analysis for product improvement,” or more clearly, letting Adobe train their AI models on your images.)
Obviously these tools have exploded in popularity as the technology has become more efficient and performant since that article was written, especially generative AI. In fact, ChatGPT did not even exist (publicly at least) when that article was written (in 2021).
Beyond photography, I acknowledge that these tools can be immensely useful. I’ve occasionally used them myself in my professional life. But within the context of creative pursuits, my opinion toward them is more or less the same as what I intended to convey in that old article: don’t use these tools if they detract from your creative practice.
To clarify what that stance means for me in particular: anything you read from me — blog posts, newsletters, image captions, social media posts — was written by me, not a generative AI algorithm.
I’m not interested in spending much time defending this stance, but in sum, I place great value in the process of being creative. For me, that process is what it’s all about. The ebb and flow of creative ideas, the agony and subsequent gratification of carefully adjusting a sentence until it’s just right, the challenge of weaving together many different but related thoughts into something coherent and meaningful and greater than the sum of its parts — that, for me, is why I’m here. Why would I want to shortcut that process?
(And this is to say nothing of the environmental impacts of generative AI, which at present, are still substantial.)
Writing can be difficult and frustrating. It definitely takes a lot of my time. So thank you, dear reader, for taking some of your time to read them.
