Rather what people were using photography for in the past may be replaced by AI. Before people went to stock photo sites for cheap images to put on their website or whatever, and tomorrow they'll find out it can be cheaper on midjourney or stable diffusion and it will do that.
But AI won't replace photography for what photography does, rather it will replace photography as the cheapest satisfactory image to use on your website that doesn't need a depiction of reality.
AI is even less than that - people who want a computer to make their artistic decisions for them have a neural net author an image or other work for them. generally the humans having no more artistic input than someone who commissions a piece from an artist by explaining what they want.
A person painting makes a trillion times more artistic decision making than someone 'painting' with a neural net. They aren't the author of the work, and can't enter it into art competitions on their own behalf (unless the rules are stupid), and can't register it for copyright as there is no human authorship.
It is the complete dissolution of human art making - its humans deciding to have a non human thing - that cannot feel emotions or understand the emotions in an image - make 'art' for them. Most because they are incapable of doing it themselves so having something is better than having nothing, some because they do art primarily for money and the neural net works faster than them and they haven't figured out the bit about no copyright yet, or will misrepresent it to illegally get a copyright on an image they didn't author.
That last point about feelings and emotions however is not clear cut, imo. Typically the process is itertive, so it's a loop and there is a feeling agent in that loop. Also if you yourself make art, you must have noticed how sometimes even the simplest of tools (say a brush or nib) create ~accidental features of the work that one finds entirely pleasing. This happens a lot to me with ink and brush :) The general input is distincly my line, it is my hand w/o a question, but I have a few works which what feature engaging aspects that were partly accidental, and part of the delight is precisely that: me, the supposed author, is surprised.
Is someone who continually commissions art until they arrive at a painting they like making artistic decisions in the work? I don't think so.
>you must have noticed how sometimes even the simplest of tools (say a brush or nib) create ~accidental features of the work that one finds entirely pleasing. This happens a lot to me with ink and brush :) The general input is distincly my line, it is my hand w/o a question, but I have a few works which feature engaging aspects that were partly accidental, and part of the delight is precisely that: me, the supposed author, is surprised.
That is unquestionably something you authored, even the mistakes, even the mistakes you liked. But at no point of commissioning artwork are you making artistic decisions.
It's an accurate description of whats going on. Commissioning paintings until you get the one you want isn't artistic expression, or artistic decision making, and the human coming up with prompts will be replaced by a machine learning program trained on prompts, as they bring the least value to the process and are the most easily replaced.
> And from a purely practical point of view, getting worked up over this is tilting at windmills.
I'm not worked up at all. I'm explaining whats going on. Is anyone who thinks differently from you getting worked up? Are you getting worked up for imagining emotions I'm not experiencing? In the future just argue ideas instead of imagining emotions across internet mind reading.
>Change is the constant. And there will be undoubtedly 'artist commissioners' that will outshine others, using the same 'artist'.
It will all approach zero value, so it doesn't matter. It's inauthentic, uncopyrightable stuff based on the misappropriation of the work of actual artists. The expert 'commissioners' will also be replaced by machine learning faster than anyone else.
That's one use of photography. OP is about an art contest, not a photojournalism contest.
But as far as "reproduction of reality", obviously AI productions unreality won't replace photography. It might replace reproduction of reality, though.
No, OP is about a photo contest, not an art contest.
>World Photography Organization’s Sony World Photography Awards
The subject matter is probably what "won" the contest, it's pretty well composed.
https://www.eldagsen.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/preview_...
.. I was impressed with composition(s) as well.
His work is quite strong.
https://www.eldagsen.com/pseudomnesia/
"Just as photography replaced painting in the reproduction of reality, AI will replace photography. Don’t be afraid of the future. It will just be more obvious that our mind always created the world that makes it suffer."