{"id":3536,"date":"2025-04-17T15:29:41","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T15:29:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/?p=3536"},"modified":"2025-04-17T17:44:18","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T17:44:18","slug":"artificial-intelligence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/artificial-intelligence\/","title":{"rendered":"Artificial Intelligence"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

It was only a matter of time before AI would take over this blog.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

And at first glance, it does so quite impressively. Give it a short prompt\u2014\u201cwrite something moody about autumn light\u201d\u2014and it conjures up a perfectly serviceable paragraph in seconds. It gets the vibe right, the grammar perfect, the pacing smooth. You read it and think, Well, damn. Not bad.<\/em> But then, as with an over-filtered photo that looked magical in thumbnail, something happens when you zoom in. You start to notice the blandness. The lack of specific vision. The fact that it\u2019s not really about<\/em> anything. It hits the right tones, but not the right notes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Because of the overwhelming number of images of Porsche 911\u2019s the requested 964 model is depicted rather accurately, even though there are obvious problems when you look closely (bumper, headlights, rear window, etc). But while you and I can perfectly know what a lesser represented model looks like, for instance an Isdera Imperator 108i, the AI has no clue. Typical.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve all seen it: when you ask for something more nuanced\u2014more specific, more you<\/em>\u2014the cracks appear. The language stutters. The references feel stitched together from someone else\u2019s understanding. It\u2019s not that AI doesn\u2019t try. It just doesn\u2019t see<\/em>. It doesn\u2019t think across dimensions or hold paradoxes in its hand. And it certainly doesn\u2019t care. That shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And yet, it\u2019s everywhere. Why? Because it\u2019s easy. It\u2019s impressive. It\u2019s fast. And it\u2019s sold to us as free<\/em>. But let\u2019s not kid ourselves\u2014this is anything but free. It runs on the backs of massive data centers, eating up electricity like candy. Every image it \u2018creates\u2019 is a remix of copyrighted work, stripped from the internet without asking. In some open-source photography projects, nearly all the incoming traffic now is bots scraping images, not people enjoying or contributing to them. If you\u2019re wondering where all your server bandwidth went\u2014now you know.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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It took me quite a few tries to get a trumpet that looked at least right at first glance. Let alone other elements in the photo.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The things AI gets wrong are often brushed off as growing pains, but they feel uncanny in a different way. When we sketch something\u2014a trumpet, let\u2019s say\u2014and realize we got it wrong, our human instinct is to correct it, revise it, add some soul. AI just confidently renders a non-functioning trumpet and moves on. There\u2019s no embarrassment, no sense of \u201cOh wait, that\u2019s not right.<\/em>\u201d It simply doesn\u2019t care. And that indifference is, frankly, a little creepy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even when it gets things \u201cright,\u201d it gravitates to the median. In programming, this looks like boring code that works but doesn\u2019t shine. In visual arts, it\u2019s a kind of sterile correctness. AI-generated images can be decent illustrations, but they rarely surprise you. There\u2019s no twist, no subtle callback to something you didn\u2019t know you remembered. It doesn\u2019t consider context, history, or the larger web of meaning your work lives within. It doesn\u2019t ask why<\/em>, it just produces.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Artist looking at some ugly sculptures.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

And we\u2014creative people\u2014have been here before. We say we use these tools \u201cfor inspiration.\u201d The same way we once said we used Pinterest \u201cfor inspiration.\u201d But the truth is, they\u2019re dopamine dispensers. A quick fix. A hit of sameness dressed in a slightly different shade. The more we scroll, the less we think. The more we \u201cprompt,\u201d the less we explore. We\u2019re losing the art of chewing on an idea, letting it simmer, letting it grow sideways before blooming into something unexpected.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Remember that? Thinking about a concept, walking away, coming back, sketching a draft, then another, then maybe another. Feeling that quiet satisfaction not just in the result, but in the process<\/em>. Watching a thought mature over time. AI doesn\u2019t have time. We do. But we\u2019re trading it away for speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A black self aware robot with a classic large format view camera with only one lens and a bellows walking on flipflops through a dreamy mountain landscape with rocks and snow peaks.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Now, some people argue that robots will eventually gather their own training data in the real world. Cameras on wheels, eyes in the sky. But that\u2019s missing the point. This isn\u2019t about data. It\u2019s about meaning. It\u2019s about consciousness, attention, the slow burn of real creativity. Photography has always been about seeing<\/em>\u2014not just pointing a lens, but noticing what\u2019s beneath the surface. Reality itself may be a manifestation of something deeper\u2014energy, awareness, intention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Where does AI fit into that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It doesn\u2019t. At least not yet. Not in the way we live<\/em> art. Not in the way we feel<\/em> light. It can copy our output, even our style. But it doesn\u2019t know why we make things. It doesn\u2019t have a reason<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So yes, AI has taken over the blog\u2014for this post at least. But the lens it writes through isn\u2019t fogged by rain or kissed by the golden hour. It\u2019s not tired from a long shoot or thrilled by a lucky frame. It\u2019s efficient. But it\u2019s empty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that\u2019s something worth paying attention to.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was only a matter of time before AI would take over this blog. Read this at your own risk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3553,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3536","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-development","category-gear"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3536"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3554,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3536\/revisions\/3554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3553"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joerivanveen.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}