an ai generated picture of a lamborghini with a snowy wintry backdrop

Will AI Art Generators replace Commercial Photographers?

Will AI Art Generators ever replace Commercial Photographers? With rapid advancements in technology and artificial intelligence (AI), it is too early to tell how it will affect photographers and the creative industry many years down the line. Programs like Midjourney, DALLE, and Stable Diffusion make it easy to create highly detailed illustrations or photos in mere seconds. That would easily make illustrators and other creatives redundant. But one thing is for sure, there are some aspects of photography that cannot easily be replaced by AI.

herbs and honey on a flat lay to resemble the shape of a bottled drink for a concept commercial photograph
A beautifully created commercial product photography by Asyraf Rahman.
an AI generated art of a commercial flat lay product photography
We used DALL E AI to generate this art. Though it generated a rather convincing image, it still lacks a lot of finesse.

First of all, what is AI generated art? In short, it is an artwork created with the help of the magic of AI. Most of these programs rely on the user to create prompt for it to produce a detailed and sophisticated image. AI art generators are so advanced, it can create works of art in styles that mimic traditional artists and even use generative methods to create unique abstract works. In order for these AI algorithms for it to work its magic, it has to be fed and with a large amount of properly labelled images, drawings, and photos.

AI Art Generators cannot replace Commercial Photographers to create images of novel product or ideas

There lies the first issue with AI Art generators. It has to be trained with data based on existing objects and ideas. If a company were to create a brand new product, how would the AI know what it looks like to render it? How would it know what features to showcase? How does it know how to create visuals that will inspire or engage the human viewer?

AI Art Generators cannot replace the human aspects of Photography

DALL E AI Generated portrait of a man
This was AI generated art by DALL E. The person does not match the prompt given. The eyes does not look quite right as well.
DALL E AI Generated portrait of a man
Another AI generated photo by DALL E. Note the oddly shaped arms, artifact in the shadow, and wonky eyes.

Talking about the human aspects, people are still very complex for the AI art generators to deal with. Pictures with people in it often turn up into a blurred mush unless you have a name of a celebrity with lots of images in its training library. That means any photography with the human element like, corporate or fashion portraits, in it is likely to stay relevant for years to come.

At the end of the day, this is not the first time in history when photographers had to adapt to new mediums and new trends.
 
Even with all the advancements to digital photographer, there are still a large amount of professionals and enthusiasts who still use film from decades past.