Generative AI and street photography

For some time now I have been noticing how many photographers have embraced generative artificial intelligence to create "photographs" through text commands. I'm not judging anyone, but I simply refuse to do it.

I remember a documentary I saw a long time ago: "First Kill" (2001), in which a series of US soldiers narrate their personal experiences in the Vietnam War. Beyond the disturbing thread of the documentary, which has to do with the psychological effects of war, such as the addiction to killing that some soldiers developed, I was surprised by how they narrated the change they experienced at a sensory level. How, as they moved through the jungle on combat or reconnaissance missions, their senses were heightened in a way they had never experienced before. In such a way that they were able to perceive the slightest noise or movement around them.

Relatively speaking, this is also my experience when I walk through the streets with the camera in my hand. Concentrated and alert, I move as if I were inside a kind of virtual tunnel and experience a feeling of being totally and absolutely alive.

I compare that vital experience with the idea of sitting in front of the computer and writing commands to an artificial intelligence so that it generates photographs for you. I don't know, I think it can even shorten your life and even kill some neuronal connection. In this regard, another movie I saw a long time ago comes to mind, which is much kinder in appearance than First Kill: "Idiocracy" (2006). Although it is a comedy that will certainly not go down in the history of cinema as a masterpiece, it does not fail to present a dystopian future that becomes more plausible with each passing day.

You can watch the documentary First Kill in its entirety on director Coco Schrijber's YouTube channel.