When the world of photography is changing rapidly, many of us wonder where it will all lead us. The evolution of film to digital and the introduction of generative AI are a few significant advancements that made us wonder how much of the innovation will benefit photographers. But while we look at the future, it also makes us think about the past. For instance, if Susan Sontag, the renowned critic of photography, had seen the latest developments, how would she have reacted? We all know that, at least, she would not have been pleased.
The author of ‘On Photography,’ Susan Sontag, had complex relations with the medium, where she often used her writings to highlight the varied challenges and impacts that photography can have on society. This is its aesthetic value and its relation with memory, ethics, and its role in shaping our perspective. She described pictures as “not only an image… an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a footprint or a death mask.” While she talks about reality, AI images, in that regard, are quite the opposite of what photographs do. They may be using data from the real world, but the end result is completely detached from reality. And so, Sontag would have issues with its lack of authenticity.
In her other essay, Against Interpretation, Sontag argued that one must not overinterpret any work of art, including images, and she advocated for a more direct experience of the piece. On the other hand, AI creates images that are sloppy and devoid of any meaning. It is just a bunch of words that try to replicate human creativity but fail to do so. The lack of its ability to think on its own is what makes it impossible for one to engage with an art. Furthermore, AI images are used to spread disinformation, which is pretty much against what Sontag believed in.
AI images can truly disrupt memory and individual experience, two things in which Susan Sontag believed that the value of photography lay. Thus, AI images threaten both these ideas, just like photography does. As she once said: “To remember is, more and more, not to recall a story but to be able to call up a picture.” It is exactly why Sontag was of the opinion that photography is a powerful tool that can’t truly grasp the reality on the whole, but the vision of the photographer and their journey that makes photography worthwhile. However, with AI imagery, there are no photographers, only citizens pushing their own agenda with AI images. As such images are becoming a part of major institutions, AI images are gradually distorting our collective memory. Of course, there is also the lack of ethics, which would push Sontag to dismiss the technology much faster than she did with photography.
Sontag wrote, “Photographs objectify: they turn an event or a person into something that can be possessed.” On the other hand, AI-generated images often remove the barrier of what’s right and wrong, with a plethora of AI to objectify and commodify people and events. While Sontag was not too pleased with image-making, per se, she would have been even more against the way AI-generated images are causing more confusion by the day. Perhaps that’s why a critic like her would make a far more in-depth analysis, showing us the true picture of what the world is getting itself into.
