Musings on Generative AI
Source: leejo.github.io
This reflective essay explores the evolving role of generative AI in photography and broader digital culture, weaving personal anecdotes, historical context, and critical commentary into a nuanced critique. The author, a software engineer and photographer, expresses concern over the erosion of nuance in online discourse and the proliferation of poorly curated AI-generated content. Through examples ranging from bot-summarized Hacker News posts to AI-written eBay listings, they highlight how automation often fails to grasp context, idiom, or intent—producing technically competent but intellectually hollow output.
The piece delves into the philosophical and historical dimensions of photography, arguing that manipulation has always been intrinsic to the medium. From Dorothea Lange’s “Migrant Mother” to Ansel Adams’ darkroom techniques and Gregory Crewdson’s cinematic productions, the essay shows that photography has long straddled the line between documentation and artifice. Generative AI, then, is not an aberration but a continuation—albeit one that risks amplifying mediocrity unless guided by thoughtful curation.
The author emphasizes that meaningful photography, and by extension meaningful AI output, hinges on filling in the “gaps”—those spaces of cultural, emotional, or experiential depth that technical precision alone cannot reach. They argue that while AI can mimic style and generate plausible images, it struggles to convey lived insight or challenge norms. The essay closes with a call to remain vigilant about what is lost in the rush to automate, and to keep asking: “What are the gaps?”