Original Article (accessed 26th August 2024)
No One is ready for this
By Sarah Jeong
For The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/2024/8/22/24225972/ai-photo-era-what-is-reality-google-pixel-9
I came across this article through Marta. I felt the need to analyse this article because of it’s proximity to my European press prize submission. The author discusses the new google pixel 9 and it’s AI enabled editing features. The article also touches on the larger cultural context of photography and the cultural impact of AI technologies being integrated into it. While the article is a good example of some the concerns we may have around the emergence of generative AI, it makes some bold assumptions. I’d like to discuss some of the merits and concerns I have with this.
Photographs, like text and ideas are and have always been subjective accounts produced by humans. Photography, since it’s invention has indeed been heralded as an account of “the truth”, however as I discussed in my EPP presentation, it has always been subject to context and framing. What a photograph, even from the early 20th century depicts, can be subject to propagandist intentions. The way it is framed, what is included and what is left out and the social context in which it is published, all affect the reception and interpretation of the image. The use of photography as a propaganda tool to promote colonialism and racism within the home countries has ample evidence. In their article, “Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority”, Zaha Chouddhary explores the many facets of the early use of photography for generating and reinforcing racial superiority by European powers.
The biases in early photography aren’t simply due to the user, in fact the very technology behind the camera film can be seen to have racial bias. It wasn’t till the 1990’s that the film technology was corrected to more accurately capture skin tones other than white. An in-depth exploration of this is done in the article “Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin.” By Estelle Caswell for Vox. In some sense, the assumption that, for any moment in history photography had been a standard for objective truth, is wrong. Such notions largely depend on who is being asked the question. A good example of this subjectivity lies in the topic of police brutality in the US, used in the original Verge article to demonstrate the use of film and photography to challenge the official/dominant view of the state. But this too, is entirely subjective. For most privileged communities in America, the idea that personal recordings disprove what the police are saying is understandable. However, given the long history of racial tension and police brutality in the US, most working class and coloured individual would navigate the world in a less naive way. Photos are not required to prove that the police are lying. As individuals in society, we navigate the world in a complex and multi faceted way, photo evidence being only one part of it. Social expectations, urban legends, neighbours, word of mouth and community history all play a part in how we see reality.
In the coming age, photography and videography may be seen with greater suspicion, however we have been on this journey for some time now. Before we had “fake images” we have had “fake news articles”. In fact, this idea of fake information may go as far back as we can information itself. We are lucky that we are more aware now than ever before, about not directly trusting what we see online. If our growing concern around manipulated images and videos is founded on being able to distinguish them, it would be more productive to educate the public on how to verify images based on metadata. Even so, the legitimacy of any media can and has never been a 100% reliable.
Photography as a Tool of Power and Subjugation: How the Camera was Used to Justify Black Racial Inferiority, by Zara Choudhary:
Color film was built for white people. Here’s what it did to dark skin, by Estelle Caswell for Vox: