The AI debate: its uses, its impact, and its challenges

Everyone is talking about the use of Artificial Intelligence in photography, video production and content creation, the spread of "AI slop", and the impact AI is having on people's livelihoods in the industry. To explore these issues, we brought together four leading Canon photographers and filmmakers who are working in different fields.

“The face of our industry is changing,” observed photographer and cinematographer Clive Booth, one of our panel. “How do we change with it? How do we stay ahead of it? We all have our different ways of approaching that.”

Here are the highlights of their discussion.

Elisa Iannacone: How are you incorporating AI into your daily practice, if at all?

Tania Freimuth: Pre-production, things like visualising a set. Then there are image generation apps you might use in mood boards or storyboards.

Whether we're photographers or cinematographers, we're all searching for the same high quality of image. As screens get bigger in the home, people look at things with greater scrutiny, and it raises their expectations. Some genre films which have a sort of documentary feel have become more distinct for their slightly scruffy look, but AI has done other genres of film and maybe photography a favour, because they can look slicker.

Elisa: There was the classic case where Steve McCurry removed people out of documentary images, which made the image more aesthetic, but there was a big backlash. Obviously, that's a particular category of photography [photojournalism], but do you have any thoughts on how far this should go?

Wanda: Even in the analogue era, before Photoshop, retouchers were removing people from pictures. AI is just a tool that can help us. I think it becomes problematic when AI starts replacing the creatives. Clients see that AI makes everything faster, so all of a sudden you don't need a photographer, a stylist, a hair stylist, a makeup artist, or even a model.

I had an exhibition last year where I had these huge 2-metre-high prints. I was experimenting with AI and used an app to create AI animations out of my pictures. It added a playful extra layer to the images, but I didn't replace anybody or any human element – although I didn't use a 3D artist, so I guess I replaced the artist...

Tania: It's a tough one, isn't it? As a creator, it gives you the opportunity to take your work to another level or in a different direction. So from a creator's perspective, you could argue that it's enabling. And at that point, I'm not sure it's doing people out of a job, because you're talking about an individual artist.

Clive: From the point of view of retouching [in commercial work], it's extraordinary how much power you get in software to be able to remove things. Twenty years ago, there were retouching houses in London, and the cost was high. Just a few years ago, it could have been quite a major job. There are so many more things it's possible to do now. I think the impact of AI is seismic. That's the term I would use.

Wanda: I definitely have less work than I had a couple of years ago, especially commercial work. I still have fashion editorials, and I still work with a lot of musicians and record labels, but on the commercial side, either they use a film still or they get a DOP to take a picture. Or they use AI to generate the actual campaign image.

Elisa: There are different categories of photography, right? We've got conceptual, which is like drama and fantasy. And so anytime it comes to documentary or photojournalism, I think we need very hard boundaries and ethical lines. Because, just by changing the clouds in a shot, because it was overexposed, you have changed history. And suddenly we're no longer witnessing, we're creating. And so the moment that we cross that line, we cannot trust the image as documentation. And I think that is a very dangerous place to be, even though inevitably it's already tweaked and you can ask whose angle are we presenting, etc. It's a deeper conversation, but I think that's the most important point. I think trust relies on entities that are meant to provide integrity, must safeguard integrity, right? And entities that are asking for our trust need to earn that.

Elisa: Wanda, you talked about creating an animation from some of your images. Since your images are conceptual, what would stop you from just generating the image? Why is it still important for you to create those images as a photographer?

Wanda: I like to do things with my hands. I like painting the backdrops myself. I don't think I would ever fully create everything in AI even if it made my life easier. Honestly, I would probably go totally the opposite way and go back to the analogue.

It's almost like when photography was invented and painters were terrified that they wouldn't be needed anymore. But in a way the invention of photography freed them from that realistic sort of depiction. And then avant-garde happened, and impressionism, and abstract art. I'm not sure if that liberation is going to happen to us, but I hope that digital, analogue and AI can be like different mediums and coexist. Analogue is already having a renaissance. Personally I’ve even started experimenting with wet plate collodion and other archaic techniques. How exciting it would be if we could use everything in a kind of mixed media project – using AI as well as wet plate collodion and digital shots and collages of everything.

Elisa: Tania, how have you been experiencing this in the cinematography world?

Tania: Personally, not too dramatically really, because things sort of fall into different camps. You know, VR is used specifically for movies, commercials or music videos. In the indie sector, which is where I'm still working, we can't afford those budgets anyway. And the lead time to use that technology is quite extraordinary also. So in the indie sector, everything's a bit more low-fi anyway.

I think there is still scope because there is too much of the same thing. People get bored and start looking for an alternative. Maybe we'll survive AI technology by remembering to be a little bit different, to be authentic.

I would never move away from wanting to create, and the process of documenting someone's story. You can't get that through a generated image because there is no journey for the participant, right? That's the part I think the technology cannot replace. I can generate beautiful ballet dancers, I can make great conceptual photography, and I can make a great film using AI tools. What I cannot do is the journey that all those people went on together. That humanity cannot be replaced.

Elisa: Could somebody using AI tools create something as good as what you're creating, or better?

Tania: Well, it would be different, surely, because they're not me, and they're not you. It goes back to my point, really: it comes from you and you're documenting somebody else's journey. So it would be different.

Elisa: Do you think AI is broadening access to photography and film again, kind of like smartphones did?

Wanda: My brother is a graphic designer and he's using AI for creating concept art as well. He said basically anybody can create hundreds and hundreds of images using AI. But at the end of the day, you have to know how to prompt it, and to choose an image at the end, you still need understanding of lighting and composition and storytelling.

So if someone is just starting out, I would still suggest hold an analogue camera first, learn about aperture, shutter speed, and sensitivity, then go to digital. And then when you've gone through that whole journey and started having some sort of aesthetic and taste, then maybe you can turn to AI. You still have to have some sort of taste and clear vision and aesthetic to use AI well.

Elisa: That process of learning on analogue and then going to digital is the same journey that I took. I do fear that newer generations might look at that and go, well, that's a little bit archaic. But I feel that what you were talking about was finding your voice. Basically just regurgitating what others have made into this new thing feels in some way similar to when you go to an art gallery and look at something that someone else made – you're not going through the process of extrapolating and then condensing yourself. It feels like that process of finding your creative voice and intuition is one that's probably going to become harder to find, maybe.

Clive: There's a word that I'd like to bring into this, and that's craft. You know, it's all about craft.

Elisa: I love that word, craft, because I think this concept of bleeding for the Arts doesn't stem from nowhere. I think everyone here knows it's almost like the Art chose you. You are now captive to this life.

Clive: We've got phenomenal technology with lenses today, and I'm working with the best cameras I've ever had. But it's less about the technology and more about the people – the IP that we all carry in our heads and all of our experience, all of our knowledge, not just in photography or film making, but our life knowledge, and sharing that too through things like the Canon Young People Programme.

Wanda: It's so important to support young and emerging photographers and help them develop their voice. Because, yes, at the end of the day, that's something that AI can't replicate.

Tania: I teach too, and I've found more and more I'm really talking to people about that very thing – developing their own voice, focusing on what they bring to the process and who they are. And then, obviously, focusing on fundamentals of craft and practice.

I think new entrants to the industry have an innate curiosity. They find film, for instance, interesting because everybody else is doing the other thing. So I guess it's a question of keeping that fire alive.

Elisa: If there were a barometer from excitement to worry about AI and where it's taking us, where would you position yourself personally?

Clive: I'm in the middle, I think, just slightly nudging towards the positive, but I'm not all the way out there. I'm not a terrible sceptic because I'm an early adopter. I love new technology. But not as far as generative AI. On one project, I had the idea to use generative AI instead of a volume stage, and colleagues said to me: "But you're going to be taking other people's intellectual property." And it dawned on me, that's completely wrong. I can't do that anymore. It's immoral.

You know, the horse has bolted to a degree. I don't know whether we can actually fight it. But we mustn't give up, and one way we can do this is not sign contracts that allow unlimited usage of our pictures – don't give away your work to AI. Of course, you might not get that job if you don't. And if you have a family, I get that. So maybe forums, podcasts, webinars, whatever, can help educate people about the nuts and bolts of the law.

It's happened to me many times before, particularly in advertising. You've seen it: "unlimited usage in perpetuity." If you ever see that, don't sign it. With AI now, they call it "hire". Of course it's not hire. It's big tech scooping it all up.

But AI will eat itself eventually, because it'll be churning out all this stuff and then AI's going to take that stuff again and, I don't know, maybe it'll turn into a sludge ultimately.

Tania: I think if it's about money, the money still gets spent, but it's just being spent somewhere else. If I think about Unreal Engine, for instance, which is a big driver for virtual production, the costs of that are high. And then you've got the lead time, which can be a month to three months. When it comes down to it, I don't know where there's actually a real saving.

Elisa: I think there's a difference in this instance between photography and cinematography. In the still image, I think it's definitely killed a lot of jobs quite quickly.

Wanda: Yeah, I agree with you, unfortunately. But on the other hand, Clive was right – it definitely gives us more freedom and free time to experiment and work on personal projects, conceptual projects. So I'm somewhere in the middle as well, and I'm still very curious. I'm trying to learn AI and trying to look at it as a new medium that I can mix with analogue and digital shots.

Elisa: To wrap up, what most concerns you and what most excites you?

Wanda: Well, I'm scared that a lot of creative people are going to be replaced by AI, and I'm going to have less work as well. But I'm excited about the possibilities and all the free time I'm going to have because of all the time that it saves me.

Tania: The thing that concerns me is the loss of authenticity within creativity, things becoming generic. I can see it and I resist it and I just hope that other people will also resist it. I'm excited by hearing about the post-production for photography, but I'm still going to be going out with my camera. I mean, they're going to be passion projects and that's what's going to be driving me to do the work.

Clive: I have big concerns about people's work being stolen. I don't think you can use another word for it. It's these engines just trawling the web for our work. I do worry for jobs – in the modelling industry, for one, because I think that's probably going to get hit very hard. But looking forward, I am optimistic, and when I see the things that are trickling through such as amazing noise reduction and more accessible VR – I get very excited. Where AI might take us, who knows? But I try to be more optimistic about it than pessimistic about it. I think we should to a degree embrace it, but be aware of the realities of what makes it what it is, and the sacrifices that we have to give it to make it happen.