10/07/2026
I did my first market of the season last weekend and more people than ever asked if my photos were AI . It’s pretty frustrating. I see so many Ai images on social media these days and it’s no wonder people are questioning what they see. It’s discouraging to see so many people I know sharing Ai images, even some conservation groups and people who are trying to help wildlife. Ai images are created by “scraping “ real photography off of the internet, most likely high quality images that were taken by professional photographers like myself. This is done without permission, the same applies to Ai music. There are endless debates about Ai being direct plagiarism, but it’s safe to say Ai generated art would not exist without having all the art created by humans available on the internet . In my opinion true art is created from the heart and soul and in my case from a place of love and reverence for nature. Ai is incapable of either. Some Ai art is beautiful, but it’s not photography and should not be passed off as such. From a conservation perspective, using chat Gpt or other Ai generation platforms drives the need for data centers and in some cases uses current data centers that are shown to cause harm to people and wildlife, the amount of energy and water used by these centers is insane, simply using SM at this point is driving the need for data centers, I post much less than I used to for this reason amongst others. I don’t understand why anyone involved in protecting wildlife would use Ai when there is so much real wildlife photography available that many of us are willing to give freely for the cause ! I understand that Ai could be used in ways that could propel the human race forward in ways we can’t imagine, but it doesn’t feel like we are on that trajectory. Like so many technological advances in the past we seem to be leveraging it in service of greed and power. Im really worried about Ai as an existential threat, and I know Ai art is a small thing considering the bigger implications, but its something to think about as you use the internet and social media platforms. 🙏
