With new technologies being invented every day that have the power to upend our profession, it’s easy to feel discouraged about the future of our art form. Fortunately, there is one fundamental advantage we possess that cannot be eliminated by design.
I have a problem. I’m not the only one. But since I write about technology every week, I might be a little more susceptible to this particular issue. As a technology commentator, it’s part of my responsibility to stay on top of new technologies as they emerge. I can’t tell you the future. But isn’t that a good thing? No, rather, it’s beneficial to understand new technologies as early as possible so you know when and how you need to adjust your business model. Of course, being constantly aware of potential threats can be very depressing. Why keep fighting when we know an even bigger wolf will soon be knocking at our front door? And yet we keep marching. Simply put, for a true artist, keeping up the good fight is as fundamental as taking a breath.
Of course, most of these upcoming dilemmas are nothing major other than speed increases. Sometimes the incoming waves can be seen as clearly as the top of a mountain, yet the path to the other side is much harder to see. We are in the midst of perhaps the most terrifying threat to artists in centuries, with the advent of artificial intelligence (AI). I have expressed my practical and ethical thoughts on this topic several times in the past. But the long story is, AI is here to stay, whether we like it or not. As someone with a dual career as a still photographer and filmmaker, I wonder how technology will fundamentally change the way I work and what new competitors in the market mean for me professionally. And I had to think about it. Once AI is fully established, this is what the future holds for the entire industry.
Of course, once you fall down the mental rabbit hole of figuring out how to deal with the industrial revolution-level changes that AI will bring about, you will inevitably need to ask additional questions. How can we adapt to stay competitive? Most of us don’t spend years becoming masters of our craft as photographers, directors, writers, etc. We spend the rest of our lives sitting in front of a computer typing away at prompts. I was forced to spend my time doing things. And many of us want to continue doing the art we love, the way we love it, no matter what the algorithms say.
But in many ways, AI is truly the new kid on the block. Although this may be the most powerful, it is not the only technological change that has occurred to artists over the past few centuries. Consider what the painters must have been thinking when the first photographs were created. These days, consider the transition from film to digital. Remember how many artists felt that photography itself would disappear because digital had made the process so “easy”? Apple reinforced this question with his invention of the iPhone. Suddenly, anyone on the planet could create perfectly exposed photos that previously had to be created by skilled craftsmen with technical knowledge.
Technology has a way of making our jobs as professional artists both easier and more difficult. In many ways, it’s a huge blessing. For example, the transition from film to digital has allowed us to take bolder artistic risks. It takes extreme confidence in your technical skills to expose film or take chances in a dark room when you don’t have a handy LCD screen to double-check that you’re on the right track. In many ways, digital has given us much more flexibility to explore our creativity while maintaining a certain safe space. At the same time, digital removes a lot of mystery from the photographic process. Before that, for many people around the world, simply capturing images photochemically was like magic. Sure, things like automatic exposure meters eventually made their way into film cameras, but most high-end work is a very technical process that makes it difficult for true professional photographers and snap takers to do so. I was making a distinction. Professionals needed to have a good understanding of technical techniques to create high-quality images. In the digital age, and especially in the mobile age, it’s much easier to create technically perfect photos, even if you have little knowledge of photographic technology, just by purchasing the right camera (or mobile phone). This is not to say that the image is somehow better or artistically special. But at least it should be in focus and correctly exposed according to the grayscale. For this reason, more and more people think that the services of a professional photographer are not necessary at all. I mean, why pay to take photos when all you really need is a phone and some editing software with presets to make it look “cool”?
Obviously, it’s all nonsense. An artist’s value lies in more than just his ability to technically execute his work. An artist’s value comes from their unique way of seeing the world and the way they translate personal feelings into an art form. What stories do they choose and how do they tell them? It’s not just about what camera they used or what brand of lights they bought. Rather, they asked where they placed those lights, why they placed them where they placed them, and how they placed them in unexpected places to create something entirely new that the audience didn’t already have. To see all the way through if you choose or when you choose not to use any lighting at all.
There’s an old adage that always comes to mind when I worry about technology potentially replacing me and my job. I don’t know who said it first, but it’s like remembering that pencils have been around for hundreds of years, but that doesn’t mean they’re better than when people had to write with expensive pencils. It doesn’t mean Shakespeare remains. Quill pen. In other words, making it easier to make “art” does not inherently make people more creative. In modern times, anyone with a smartphone has access to more filmmaking tools at any time of the day than the early Hollywood pioneers needed to make a feature film. But that doesn’t mean everyone with a cell phone automatically becomes a genius like Buster Keaton. Just because I own a camera that uses autofocus to consistently produce sharp photos doesn’t make me Annie Leibovitz. What artists do is find unique ways of looking at the world and telling unique stories that are not just elements of technological advancement. Instead, they are creating and refining the art form itself.
I mention all of this because it is the only power we have as artists, free from the threats of technology. Even something like an AI that steals from other artists and literally performs magic tricks is mathematically impossible to produce truly original work. Yes, you can create a final product that no one has ever seen before. But AI models are literally trained by feeding on existing material, find a way to translate that art into mathematical formulas, and create “new” works based on millions of equations from other works from which they were trained. Spit out. This can yield surprising results. But fundamentally, AI knowledge is always literally based on existing data that is fed to the AI. Therefore, anything it creates will always be derivative in some way. Now, I can briefly digress about the legal and ethical implications of this, but again, as AI continues to develop, it’s better to think about what it can’t and won’t do. That’s fine. How does that relate to our own goals as artists? And what no technology can ever replicate is our ability to be original storytellers. Yes, ChatGPT can imitate other writers. But I can’t think of anything that original. That is the human realm.
Considering all the challenges we face as artists, it’s hard not to get depressed from time to time. We work in a competitive industry with oversaturated supply. In the face of inherent downward pressure on interest rates, we must constantly justify our economic value in order to earn money to live. And to make things even more fun, new technology comes out every year that threatens to completely disrupt entire industries, and we have to fight against it in order to do what we love.
But at the end of the day, we love it. That’s why we became artists in the first place. And no matter what technology comes along that promises to do our jobs better than we can, or by adding clickable buttons that do the same thing instantly, without the need for training, we The world will always need original storytellers, even as technology emerges that can offset decades of technical craft experience. The world always needs people with the ability to generate original ideas and push boundaries. The world always needs people to think outside the box. create. To expand humanity. The world needs people who can convey what it really feels like to be alive.
