I’ve been seeing a lot of posts on Linked In about ditching your photographer and getting free professional looking headshots using Artificial Intelligence Now it’s obvious why this might be triggering for me being a portrait photographer but what’s really interesting is the amazing conversations this topic has opened up to me.

I’m always intrigued by technology and how it can speed up my creative workflow and used as a tool to enhance creativity. My career acutely relies on it and I am all for development and pushing creative boundaries. I’ve also been to a few conferences where I’ve heard the leaders across creative industries talk about how they utilise Artificial Intelligence from from the composer of Avatar to music production, film agencies, cancer research and beyond. There is lots to say and folks have lots of fears about the future so I really believe this is a topic that needs much deeper attention. What we’ll look at here is how this conversation strikes enquiry into what artists are, what they are for and why the creative process is important not just for us as individuals, but for the whole of society. And if technology can help us be even more human…

In a conversation with my husband about this morning over breakfast, he reminded me that films such as Terminator, The Matrix and animations like Ghost in the Shell have been thinking about this issues since the 80s and 90s, it’s just now that it’s in everyone’s pocket does it feel like we all want to be in on the chat.

Before we dig in to the juicy bits, I want to clarify that when I am talking about Artificial Intelligence here I am generally referring to generative AI and large language models like ChatGPT. I also want to say that I am no expert, just collating conversations I have been having and creating boundaries for myself that fit with my values. And although this blog is limited in it’s scope, I hope it is still though provoking and helpful.

FOR

speeding up creative procesSes

For years now, I have been using Artificial Intelligence in my photo editing process in Lightroom and Photoshop to cut my time dramatically. I use the AI tools for face a body recognition when maybe the subject needs to pop from the background or if I want to highlight the eyes. I’d previously have to manually draw a circle in that area so this is an amazing development and saves me hours! It facilitates the tweaks that I can make and makes my life easier, but doesn’t remove the parts of my job like I love the most like the shooting and client interaction! The generative fill in photoshop is also a godsend - so intuitive at removing or replacing a texture where a light-stand crept into the image or removing people in the background.

humour

I see Artificial Intelligence excelling in low quality, highly astute memes. Using images and text to make humorous (and usually profound) comment on the state of the world. Bringing a lightness to the day - you know the sort of thing you send to your other half to make them laugh (apparently it’s called pebbling and my husband and I are very good at it!). There is a whole Facebook group “AI fails” which is very very funny and entertaining. And I’ll never forget the time I asked photoshop to add more cow-parsley to a grassy area and it actually added in a hefty ox 🤦‍♀️. It doesn’t always get it right does it?

mixed media art

My husband loves to point out that films that use an amalgamation of CGI and real models stand the test of time, like Lord of the Rings or even the painted backdrops in Star Wars. Mixing media is fun! It’s always been an intriguing and experimental way to combine art techniques and create new ideas. Surrealism with something grounded in reality which is a wonderful mix. Olivia Bossert - fashion photographer and artist is playing around with this a lot and even using it to provide exciting and refreshing asset for her fashion brands! Note that she is using her own photographs that she has crafted with care and intention as an experienced photographer.

GENERATING IDEAS

Not sure how to structure your blog post? Or what the title should be? Are you struggling with the tone of your copy or even the descriptive words that could eloquently describe your event? ChatGPT is brilliant for brainstorming. This is where I think it comes into its own. Like an enhanced version of Pinterest, throwing random ideas together can help form the most interesting concepts and ideas. Our brains actually do this too when we sleep in dreams and sometimes wonderful unexpected ideas can emerge.

AGAINST

robbing the process

Here’s one of my main problems with Artificial Intelligence. Speak to any artist or creative and they will tell you that making their art is where the joy and satisfaction is. The time spent with the materials, in flow, in full creation mode is where our sense of purpose comes from. We don’t actually want anyone or anything to take that away from us! But here’s the thing, creativity - the process of making something - is for everyone. It regulates our emotions, gives us hits of the happy hormones, creates community and promotes mindfulness, the antidote we need for our fast-paced modern life that is creating a mental health crisis.

But people like Steve Bartlett are actively perpetuating this lie that we are making creative creation available to everyone finally without scrutinising the limits or problems in doing so. Making it sound so attractive and easy that everyone can jump on the bandwagon without a second thought. That very post inspired this blog and often haunts my dreams! Public figures with huge influence, I believe, need to be accountable for such damaging messaging. (Note I have enjoying Bartlett’s breadth of content recently so was quite surprised by his unbalanced stance on this).

I had heard people liken Artificial Intelligence to the printing press in terms of how quickly it could reproduce information and communication. But the printing press is merely a copier, it is not shortcutting the creative process or creating anything new. Yes it did change the world and I am aware that lots of scribes were out of work! But it did usher in a new are era of communication which benefited everyone. My main concern here is that we are shortcutting the creative process, the part of life that keeps us well and makes us human.

“The photoshoot is the best part of creating photos. I don’t want anyone taking that away from me.”

FAKING human connection

We know when something is fake. I see through the social media posts that are uncharacteristically snappy and the portraits where the eyes are aligned or the texture is off. Subconsciously we know when something is fake or AI generated even if we can’t articulate it. Remember the uncanny valley when the first Beowulf movie came out in 2007 or The Polar Express - it’s really hard to make human characteristics hyper realistic and 100% accurate. Even animation experts can’t do it so how can we train A.I. models to do it?

And we swipe on past, bored with how generic content is. Our brains are storytelling machines and we can tell the nuance of real experience and human connection. It’s one of our strongest drivers as humans and we are really good at detecting counterfeits. Like I say to my clients all the time, if you have an image online that doesn’t match up when you meet people in real life, it sows doubt and mistrust, albeit subconsciously.

A great example of this can be taken from a recent Netflix release. Adolescence and Electric State were released on the same weekend and the small budget, hard hitting, culture-changing, innovatory-shot drama completely overshadowed the high-budget, glossy Hollywood, same-old story. Adolescence, a real human story wins out over the same old thing we’re used to seeing, reaching the top ten views ever on Netflix. We will always need these real stories, actors and characters bouncing off each other on set and changing society with depth and meaning. Nothing replaces it.

MAKING Your brand look cheap

Following on from the last point, AI-generated portraits look fake which makes in turn their brand look cheap and untrustworthy. The minute we get a whiff of fake enhancement or Artificial Intelligence, we zone out and subconsciously make (negative) assumptions. The magic of your portrait is in the interaction and positive experience of the shoot, the time spent preparing and then with your photographer. The nuance of your expression and the attention to detail that your photographer makes to capture you in a natural yet flattering and honest light.

TAKING WORK FROM artists

Intellectual property for artists is a notorious grey area and hard to safeguard. But on AI there are no guardrails in this country at all! A lot of prolific artists have spoken out against this from the creator of Studio Ghibli to Jingna Zhang . It takes years to create a style and for an algorithm to have permission to copy that without consequence seems immoral to me. H&M have also been given permission from models that will be cloned for future fashion campaigns and not many people in the industry are happy about this. Our personal choices inherently affect other people and our globalised world means that we are even more interconnected as a species then we think. Do we want to destroy creative careers for an easy life and without a second thought?

On a larger scale, the veil has been lifting on how the world functions and what leaders are prepared to do when their only driving goal is to make more money. We all need money to live and pay the bills and achieve the good we want to see in the work but what kind of a world are we creating for our children if we are prepared to wipe out whole industries just because it’s convenient? Do we really want to live in a world with no authentic art or artists? Shortcutting solely for financial gain, is not a value that creates the change in the world we so desperately want and need to see. How can we solve problems that we have never encountered before like climate change without creative thinkers? Kingston School of Art, have actually started a petition and have said that we need to stop 'talentless billionaire technocrat parasites' from stealing our work without pay or recognition.’ The world is responding to these fast paced advances in technology that cause harm to the people and industries that we love and need.

OTHER CONCERNS

environmental cost no one is talking about

I think this is a really important point to consider and not one I hear many people talking about. However kudos to @hereweflo who issued an apology after jumping on the ‘AI doll’ bandwagon last month and then realising that because thousands (or millions?!) of people jumped on the trivial trend, that it was a huge cost to he planet for nothing more than a quick snigger. I have heard that one Chat GPT search is equivalent to buying one bottle of water, and the massive amounts of water required to cool the huge data centres that power AI models. Does knowing this help us to reach for ChatGPT in a more moderated way?

WIDENING The void in creating communities that HELP us thrive

Bev Costoya who I met through the amazing community Found and Flourish has been thinking a lot about this and been sharing some of her thoughts with me. “I've been thinking about how tech tools in general impact our community and our sense of community for a few years now and more recently I've been thinking about that in relation to the impact generative AI may be having. For example, are people turning to LLM's (large language models such as ChatGPT or Claude) for advice and guidance now, that in the past they'd have asked a colleague or peer about.

Of course asking an LLM is quicker and comes without the awkwardness of asking a human, AND it I think it also comes at the expense of creating and strengthening relationships with our fellow humans and doing our thinking in real life. Does the rush to efficiency, and always trying to save time mean we are missing out on some important steps in our thinking and creating processes? And although we may not be directly asking an LLM to give us an idea, our ideas ARE subtly moulded and directed.

“So maybe one idea we could start thinking about is rather than a ‘digital first’ approach we switch to a ‘human first’ perspective. ”

— Bev costoya

This is a great point. Since the pandemic I have become aware and had many conversations about the need for connection and community whether for business, parenting, friendship or a sense of belonging in my local community. I think the lack of this type of connection that our parents would have had a resource in their day is a huge factor in the current mental health crisis. Social experts and philosophers believing that this period of time will be coined the Age of Anxiety. So it’s good to ask ourselves - are we losing out on something more purposeful and important when we are using Artificial Intelligence to create meal plans or outfits to wear each day or parenting advice? What are we losing out on?

My lovely client Liz Spears of Honey Studios posted an amazingly timed post on her Instagram which really spoke into this. The idea of a third space where we have a real-life in person connection that has a remarkable affect on our lives. Read it below and ponder it’s significance…

INHERENT BIAS

This was one of the first things that struck me when first doing some training on Artificial Intelligence a few years ago. That systematic discrimination is embedded within AI systems that can reinforce existing biases, and amplify discrimination, prejudice, and stereotyping. Dominant white male voices contribute to most of the content on the internet so of course AI models would reflect this. And as an example, ‘headshot generator craze’ often created male portraits even when it was obvious that the subject was female. Obviously, underrepresented voices won’t be generated in content without very careful guidance and interaction. If at all. Remember it is only regurtugating information that already exists and guess what, that information is biased.

CREATING AN ECHO CHAMBER

Bev has more to say on this. “Generative AIs are fundamentally people pleasers, so don't directly challenge our ideas unless prompted to - and even then my experience is not as much as another human would. Have you noticed the way it steers where you could take your idea next? And if we know anything right now, it's the dangers that come from echo chambers. I want a world where my kid's ideas are challenged and they are presented with contrasting views.” I have definitely noticed this. I mean the irony of what happened when I asked Chat GPT to come up with something on this:

So, What next?

I think we need to proceed with curiosity and also care. Artificial intelligence has the capacity to help us be more human but only if treated with intention and our eyes wide open. I think we need to be more human, acting not only with intelligence and logic but also being led by gut and heart. As well as humility to have reasonable and relatable conversations about this (and other) topics. This takes inner work and self-awareness (things Artificial Intelligence does not have) to move forward in the world to create a place we want our children to inhabit. I don’t want to live in a world that lacks depth and soulfulness. So bearing all this in mind, there needs to be both an individual and collective consideration to why and how we utilise Artificial Intelligence to enhance and not diminish the human condition.

The clue is also in the name. ‘A.I.’ has become such a buzz word but the clue is in the name. Artificial. An artificial world will leave us being emotionally, mentally and spiritually bereft. Art is one of the things that makes us human and it enhances society to have these thinkers and artisans.

“In a nutshell for me, it’s a content generator, a strategy partner, a sense maker of my many thoughts. It’s never a creator of thoughts, opinions or art.”

— Lara Sheldrake, Founder of Found & Flourish

In my gut, I feel like the arts are safe. Most of us are utilising digital solutions to speed up our processes or help bouncing off ideas. Artificial Intelligence cannot create something new, but merely regurgitate what already exists or copy someone’s else’s work. It won’t create works of art but it will create works of mediocrity. As I heard recently, we are just making unorignality quicker!

This week I attended an amazing event at the insanely beautiful Hoxton Halls called Bodies, Minds and Machines For the Humans of Tomorrow as part Feminist Futures which was a feminist, philosophical investigation with grace, candour and fresh perspectives on Motherhood,, Faith, The Manosphere as we well as sex-robots. Interspersed by performances by Stealing Sheep, I had one of the best nights out in ages! Especially seeing my dear friend Chine MacDonald on the panel involved in such an important discussion. Lots of us are having amazing conversations. Let’s keep going…

So, my final invitation is start having open conversations with humility and curiosity and find the boundaries within your own morals and ethics when using Artificial Intelligence. I was speaking on a panel for the creative community ZEST last month on this very topic of AI in the Arts and among many things discussed with Oliver Pickup and Thomas Akintan, the conversation centred around considering the world we are leaving for our children and the next generation. Something about that question often gets to the crux of the issue … I am really open to leaning into these conversation and learning more.

Donna x

P.S. Please send me a comment below or get in touch with any burning thoughts or reflections or if you want to join any of the creative communities mentioned here.