FAQ 6 - AI-GC
AI-generated content
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601. What’s the difference between “photography” and “AI-generated content”?
“Photography” involves creating an image with the recording of light (usually with a camera of some type).
“AI-generated content” is created with a computer, not by recording light (there is no camera involved at all).
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602. Which is likely to prevail in the future?
Both will have their place.
The future of much image-making looks like a lot of AI-GC.
Many kinds of non-TTG images that in the past were made using photographs now incorporate added AI-GC.
But the future of photography — assuming “photography” is defined as “writing with light” — looks a lot like TTG.
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603. How does TTG ensure that photos are “written with light”?
The #1 item of the Trust Test prohibits adding to a photo any AI-GC (and anything else not created by visible light from the scene).
TTG will always celebrate the essence of photography. Since the first principle of photography is “writing with light,” that is the first principle of TTG as well.
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604. How can TTG be so sure that TTG photography will never be displaced by AI-generated content?
Because there is no such thing as a TTG-qualified photo with added AI-GC.
Adding any AI-GC will always disqualify a photo from TTG, thanks to P1, P2, P3, P4, P5, and P7.
TTG is all about trustworthiness, and the addition of AI-GC never increases the trustworthiness of a photographic record.
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605. What is covered by the term “AI-generated content”?
On this website, the term “AI-GC” is used to describe both
(1) entire images created by AI (plaigis) and
(2) individual AI-generated elements — and even individual pixels — that are added to photographs (aigmentation).
Both kinds of images can be deceptive anytime viewers think they are seeing an undoctored photograph.
See also the goose-egg page and see “Seen vs. Simulated.”
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606. Why not just make a label that says “Free of AI-GC”?
Because AI-GC is only one of many ways of deceiving viewers.
Such a label would not appreciably help viewers checking for trustworthiness.
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607. What about talk that AI-GC will mean the death of photography?
That will never happen, because by definition AI-generated content can never do what photography does better than any other medium.
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608. Then how will AI-GC affect photography?
That depends on which kind of photography one is talking about.
AI-generated content will not change the working methods of photographers making TTG-qualified photographs.
But for photographers who aren’t concerned with TTG, the ability to add AI-GC will eventually offer unlimited creative possibilities.
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609. Will VUOs be free of AI-GC?
The only useful VUOs will be free of AI-GC.
To be useful, a VUO has to show “only what the camera saw,” so there would be no point in examining a VUO (or CUO) that has AI-GC.
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610. What about uses of AI that don’t involve content-generation?
“Artificial Intelligence” (“AI”) — without the “generated content” — fills other photographic roles that do not diminish the trustworthiness of the resulting photographs (and do not disqualify photos from TTG).
Examples of these other uses of AI include all kinds of tasks in smartphones (especially regarding scene and subject information); autofocus assistance while shooting (in cameras of all kinds); adjusting color balance while editing; and sorting, captioning, and keywording images.
The numbering of the FAQ questions will not change — any new questions are added at the bottom and given new numbers — so users can safely make a link to any specific question.