May 16, 2025
People have OPINIONS about AI
Thanks to everyone who sent in replies to my recent messages about AI.
As you might imagine, the topic is somewhat polarizing.
I’ve gotten a number of strong opinions from both pro-AI and anti-AI viewpoints.
Here are some particularly thoughtful ones that represent a few different viewpoints that I think you might find useful (shared with permission, unedited):
Hi Jonathan,
I have many thoughts (okay, maybe many of them are rants) about AI right now.
I have played around very minimally with it, but I haven’t found a use case that I find both useful and high priority yet.
Most people I see and talk to who using AI use chatGPT to write or create outlines of information. I feel like both these use cases defeats the whole purpose for me. You’ve often talked about how a daily writing practice helps you crystalize your thinking and find new ways to explain your ideas more clearly to people. Wouldn’t using AI diminish those benefits? I’m curious if you use AI to write frequently? (I did see you emails about turning your talk into a book with AI).
In terms of note taking or outlining information, again, I feel like AI in many cases defeats the purpose. For example, I didn’t take notes in college to have notes to read again later, I took notes so that I could soak in the information and organize it internally so I remembered it better.
I do think AI can do some cool things that I see potential in. If I had an AI that had all of my content in its brain that I could ask questions from and find big picture patterns in, that would be so useful. I know putting something like this together would take a lot of set up, research, and investment and while it is cool, it doesn’t solve a high-priority problem for me so I haven’t done it yet.
Another cool use case I see for AI is in translating live conversations and transcribing. I do use an AI tool to create transcriptions of my podcast.
I have hesitations about using the "public" AI tools like chatGPT. I think creators should be credited for their work and that AI shouldn’t be able to train itself on someone’s work without permission. The permissions and legal protections are still so fuzzy. Crediting and citing sources isn’t just an ethical issue, I also think it is best for the user/researcher too. There is too much nonsense on the internet that I’m sure gets rolled into AI answers and users should know where this info is coming from so they can evaluate the credibility of the sources for themselves.
There is another potential issue I see with AI. I hear people say that AI won’t replace human experts in any field because someone always will be needed to proof, edit, and evaluate AI output and it is the interns and assistants that will be out of work. If so, how do those younger professionals learn to become the future experts? If they aren’t learning from people more seasoned in their careers because those people are using AI instead, what will be the new path to gain expertise? I’m curious how an AI echo chamber will impact things.
Overall, I see some potential, but lots of problems with AI. Mainly, I am so tired of the constant bombardment of (poorly/overly used) AI from every angle and software tool now so I get away from it where I can.
Sorry for the long reply! I’m curious what others have to say about this as well.
Best,
Hey Jonathan
AI in photography.
I know photographers who totally freak out about AI and losing their jobs to it (depending on their quality of work and specialisation they might be very much right about that).
I know photographers who went down the rabbit hole in Midjourney trying to become professional prompters instead of photographers.
I watch and follow both but find myself not really having any interest in experimenting myself.
Myself having niched down into architectural photography from my very beginning I feel like I’m having an edge on other genres due to architects always needing proof that they were actually able to bring their design, their beautiful ideas into reality. You can’t proof that something actually exists by using renderings or AI-generated imagery.
Hotels, brokers, product suppliers however - they will most likely jump to AI as soon as it’s good enough for their respective use cases, I’d say. In some areas they already have.
Back to myself. I love text based AI applications. I’d love for my iPhone to be much more AI so that I could tell it what to do in more use cases. But when it comes to image creation I notice how I’m more and more drawn to the opposite end of the spectrum - film photography. Large format cameras. Crafting actual physical products. Maybe I’m simply not creative enough to be able to create something meaningful with AI, maybe I’m just naive and too romantic in liking something tactile ;-) But when people see me working with my big old camera they stop in their tracks. That piece of aluminium is one of my top 3 performing marketing tools!
When I look at advertising photographers that are "in" and recent campaigns by big corporations I see something similar: corporations seek the imperfect, the "real", images that look like they evolved from everyday interactions not produced by professionals. A 35mm-film look that plays with memories of summer vacations in the 80s/90s for example.
Rendering studios in the architecture field make their visualisations look like hand cut collages or sketches because their work otherwise looks too clean and perfect.
Why am I not panicking like the others? I kind of decided that there is a certain way of working as a photographer that I enjoy doing for myself. If at some point there is no longer interest in my way of working I’m perfectly fine with that. Then I might continue doing it as a hobby and go back to copyright law (what I studied) or woodworking (what I did in school for a long time) for work.
Not sure if I put my thoughts in a cohesive easily understandable order but I hope you get the gist of it...
Yours,
Hi Jonathan you’re absolutely correct. I have been using ChatGPT in my own business for just on 10 weeks now and I am gob smacked at how useful it is.
I’ve tripled my productivity and output and have developed highly valuable new services for my clients that I had never dreamed were possible.
It might be fun for you to do a series of short interviews with people around how they are using AI to add value to clients, grow sales and free up time.
From my perspective ChatGPT is like having Alladin’s lamp with unlimited wishes!
Very exciting times!
Warm regards
Thanks to Alison, Manuel, and Graham for allowing me to share their messages with you :-)
Yours,
—J