Authenticity versus Creativity (in Photography) and the AI menace.

 Is it really a new debate? Certainly not! Manipulation of photographic pictures have started at the very beginning of the medium. So, there is no reason to be so deeply shock to learn that a"false" or an " enhanced" or a "recreated" picture is part of our public or private visual space or screen. It can be glamour, amazing, disbelieved or simple bad tasted but there are a cultural expression that we cannot ignore.

Now there is also and always the same old justification to manipulation under the creative free expression. That can be understandable as long it will or it has never became a misleading attempt to abuse people and oriente them to adverse reactions that, on normal (and authentic) circonstances, will be highly condamnable. Sure some will say and pretend that in being critical will prevent the problem BUT being critical is not as easy as these "some" may think and in particular for these "some" that aren't many times in fact.

There is no limits to impose to creativity as for counter-creativity ("no pictures are good" or "everything have been done"). But authenticity depends greatly on personal and societal integrity, a human quality very rare to encounter these days considering the people individual agenda. Integrity is asking for open mind and a certain amount of intellectual generosity.

We have learned that artificial intelligence (i.e., none human) or AI may produce artificial pictures that cannot be distinguished from the reality. Although we may emphasize the technical performance, it seems that plausibility and counter-verification have to be applied in any case especially when these pictures seems in contradiction with our previous knowledge of the subject and its context. In one sentence, being critical is simply being lucid.

At the end, we cannot deny that creativity stays an important part of the photographic process. It is up to us to stay conscientious about the limits or the out-limits that this very imaging process represent in face of a "raw" reality of ours.

Photo Daniel M: Panasonic Lumix GM5 / G Vario 12-32mm F3.5-5.6 OIS