Generative Artificial Intelligence

 Generative Artificial Intelligence is not really changing photography so much as adding to the ways in which photography is manipulated.  It is the logical extension of a process started long ago when photographers dodged and burned prints in a very dark room.  I presume that the process will continue to evolve and continue to amaze, but I don’t believe that it will ever replace the role of the photographer or the artist. Their fundamental role is to see and then create.  AI can not do that.  It is but one more very powerful tool in the human’s creative tool box.  How it is used is still the purview of the human.  I fully expect most of what is produced through the use of AI to be banal, just as most of our other efforts at expressing ourselves and describing our world are less than exhilarating.  The complexity that it adds to the task of understanding what we see is, however, going to be an interesting challenge.  My guess is that it will take time for us to fully adapt to it and I see the possibility that it might actually be beyond the ability of a significant proportion of us.  The underlying question in my mind is whether humans can ever fully adapt to having invented computers.  I admit to being extremely skeptical, but I also understand that I am too old to be relevant.