AI Generated Images

 

This is an AI generated image based on another image I took as a source and the prompt "Bunnies in Grass" by Stable Diffusion. Here is the original image.

As you see with just a little bit of inspection, it is not perfect. But don't get mislead. AI is learning very, very fast. A few months from now such imperfections might be thing of the past.

Let me show you another one, based on another image of mine with the prompt "King Charles".

I had to fix a strange line in the forehead in the AI output, but otherwise it is amazing. Here is the original image that I took because I liked the empty impression. 

Before we discuss this a little bit, or rather before we express our astonishment about that technology, here is another "Bunnies in Grass", but this time without a base image.

It is not a real image, but what is it based on? There must be an image or some images somewhere of those animals and the grass that was exploited to generate this AI image. It is a realistic image which could just as well been real.

Obviously, we have several problems here. 

• For one, there might be serious copyright violations. Most likely, however, the AI combined images and alienated them in such a way that copyright is no longer an issue. Maybe the images were free anyway. 
• The second issue is the loss of credibility we are facing. What can we trust to be real? The famous image of the pope buying a fancy white parka and the arrested Donald Trump should be a warning to us.
• If images can be created that easily, what becomes of the photography business? I am thinking especially of stock photography. The generators will become ever more advanced and can create precisely tailored images in no time.

I am not worried about the last item. Someone must go out and shoot the basic images. AI cannot do this, at least not yet. But it may spare us the repetitions of the same motive. Have a look at this account on Instagram if you do not know what I mean.

Credibility must be restored by regulation. Whenever there is a chance that an image is can be seen as a photograph of reality, but it is not, I think it needs an "AI" label. If we don't do this nobody will trust anybody any longer.

AI can also be a tool, and it is used as such for some time now. Think of AI noise reduction, sharpening, or upscaling. Photoshop's eraser tool is another example, as well as the sky replacement available in several editors. A simple example is a face beautifier like the one that is abused so much on Instagram and TikTok. This is another area where labelling "AI Enhanced" might be a good idea.

I am not afraid of AI. Instead, we should use it as a tool. The true fear I have is that regulators are not strong enough to enforce regulations. I want AI to be recognizable as AI. If I speak to some hotline on the phone, I want to know if it is human or not. If my stock portfolio is administered by an AI, I want to know that. I would use a robot as long as it does not look human. But I want the manufacturer of the robot to take responsibility when it does not work. 

Let us see, what the future brings. We need transparency, education and political control to make it work the best for us.