Let me offer a few (not so brief) thoughts on this topic.
First, I think it's a mistake to talk about "AI" as if it were one big common set of tools and issues--it isn't. What people refer to as AI involves everything from generating books or music or pictures (based on prompts), answering questions, proving grammar tips, doing a review of a database and then offering a summary/review of the literature, summarizing feedback (ala Yelp), operating things (like Waymo with taxis), or even making decisions. We're photographers here so let's try to keep this focused on generative prompts because otherwise the conversation breaks down.
For instance, I use AI to take a picture I made and then sharpen it. Others may use it for batch processing. But those uses of AI (in this case software programs) are substantially different from prompts which generate a picture.
Someone earlier in this thread talked about how he/she could visualize a picture and then it makes no difference if it is created by prompts or a camera. It does make a difference--a huge one.
Yes, music or pictures generated by prompts can be art. But a picture generated by prompts is NOT a photograph. That distinction is absolute.
I refuse to consider work generated by prompts as photos because they weren't created with some form of camera manipulating light (but rather, created by someone manipulating prompts). Doesn't mean it's not art. It's just not a photograph. Just as I can take one of my photos, run it through a program to make it look like a painting and declare "I painted this!"--nope. Looking like a painting doesn't make it one. A file produced as a JPEG is not a photograph unless you used a camera of some sort (from a watermelon to an iPhone or anything in between) to make it.
Finally, all generative prompt programs rely on the creative work of others. Go to any AI art program and put in your prompts for a beautiful redhead in a bikini on a white sand beach with a setting sun behind her and dolphins frolicking near the surf. It may be your idea. Depending upon the program and additional prompts, you may get a lovely picture. But that picture (it's not a photo) was creating by scraping images from hundreds of other photographers who don't get credit. It would be similar to me taking the iconic Marilyn Monroe Playboy centerfold and change a curl in her hair and then saying "that's MY photo!" No, that photo was taken by Tom Kelley. I just uploaded it and manipulated part of it to produce the image I then show (and claim as my own).
![[No title]](/data/xfmg/thumbnail/38/38263-ad5e4c9e677626ddb5b1e7cdf9ebe40e.jpg?1734172152)
