DALL-E 2 and the Future of Photography
We are heading into an exciting future of photography and digital content creation. And that future maybe here. But what does it mean for photographers? For a number of years, I've been using Photoshop to remove, add, and manipulate photographs that would take me 10-20 minutes to an hour. But with AI like DALL E 2, I only had to make some minor adjustments and I was able to restore a photo for a client.
What is DALL E 2?
DALL E 2 is an artificial intelligence program that can create images from textual descriptions, revealed in early 2021 by OpenAI. DALL·E is a 12-billion parameter training version of the GPT-3 transformer model used to generate images from textual descriptions, implemented by NVIDIA. It achieves new state-of-the-art results on the ImageNet completion task.
How Does DALL E 2 Work?
DALL E 2 works by taking in textual descriptions and generating corresponding images. For example, if you were to input the text "a group of people playing volleyball on a beach," DALL E 2 would generate an image of exactly that. While the results are not always perfect, they are usually close enough that they could be mistaken for real images. This technology has a wide range of potential applications, from helping visually impaired individuals "see" pictures to creating 3D models for video games and movies.
The Future of Photography
So, what does this all mean for photographers? In short, it means that our jobs are going to change. As artificial intelligence continues to evolve, it is going to become increasingly good at generating images from textual descriptions. This will allow businesses and individuals who do not have access to professional photographers to create their own high-quality visuals without having to hire someone.
However, this doesn't mean that photographers will become obsolete; far from it, in fact. While AI may be able to create realistic-looking images, it still cannot match the creativity and artistry of a human mind. As such, photographers will still be needed to capture those one-of-a-kind moments that cannot be replicated by machines. In other words, while the future of photography may be changed by artificial intelligence, there will still be a place for human photographers in it.
Examples below
Here are some examples of a client who wanted to remove her daughter from the photo.
The first photo is the original, the second, I removed the daughter, and saved it as .PNG, the third photo is the final product.
Notice how the AI generated hair, necklace, neck, most of her torso, arm, even the way she posed. Incredible.
Conclusion
The future of photography is changing thanks to advances in artificial intelligence. However, this doesn't mean that photographers will become obsolete; far from it, in fact. While AI may be able to create realistic-looking images, it still cannot match the creativity and artistry of a human mind. As such, photographers will still be needed to capture those one-of-a-kind moments that cannot be replicated by machines. So although the future of photography is uncertain, one thing is for sure: there will always be a place for human photographers in it.
