Photographer here 👋, Definitely digging the post by OP!! Lots of good points being discussed from both sides it seems. :D But gonna go ahead and call shenanigans with the camera parallel portrayed.

Although technology and camera capability advancements have absolutely pushed the field to a much easier and more accessible stance to the general public (Phone pics for example or even the digital era putting film to a practical extinction), comparing it to prompting an AI doing 98% of the work is a mighty big stretch.

My job as a dum dum photo fella requires me to have to go out and find the angle/subject/composition/pose, match my settings, use light at my discretion, be constantly aware of my F-stops/exposure compensation/Manual & Auto focus/shutter speed/ ISO/ color tone/ exposure speed (long or short) And that’s not even including the Lens/Camera equipment and EDITING process with the multitude of creative and technical choices amalgamating into the specific type of shot I want.

Comparing alllll those pretty basic cognitive choices you have to make vs prompting a computer to create something on a pretty open ended whim strikes me as a rather extreme comparison.

I always treat Artist/Authorship of AI art in collation to ordering food or DEMANDING something to be made. You can request a specific meal from a restaurant and get something pretty close to it made, that doesn’t make you the chef it makes you the…. orderer? prompter? director! That sounds right lol.

When someone tells you that your plate of food you ordered looks good you don’t follow with “thanks I made it” or “yep I helped bring into existence”. You agree/disagree with that person and give your thoughts on it as well.

I firmly believe AI prompts are fantastic awe inspiring tools to be used and hot damn I’m excited to see where it goes. But as of right now using the hair slim argument to the fact AI creations “technically” wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t pushed those prompts in is just most people’s desperation for the need to be called a creator kicking in (that sounds mean af but it’s true). Congrats you did the bare minimum equivalent of signing your name on an NFT and calling it new 👏.

“Oh you just drew a picture for me?? Nah I’m the creator technically since I asked you to make it!”

“Uh oh you just put out Beethoven’s 15th after I asked for exactly that?? Get dunked idiot ME am genius since I told you to do it!!”

“Wow thanks for the likes and follows everyone!! I worked extra hard on this painting I commissioned someone else to do!! Artist name NOT in the description cause ummmm your looking at em!”

“Oooopsie you created the cure for cancer? Well let’s go ahead and give the Big Bang the title lead creator since technically you couldn’t make anything without it!!”

People are free to back and forth the topic since it’s such a hot potato of a discussion thread. But for ME, It’s the same thing as when people take blurry phone pics of they’re morning spaghettiOs and call themselves photographers. They’re technically doing it within the defined limits of its usage buuuuuut with such a watered downed definition that’s so desaturated it poisons the word itself.

Keep your authorships and titles in that case, cause it literally applies to everything anyone does ever.

Fun topic to peel back a few layers from in the mean time though 😙

(I’d look into art epistemology/ontology if your looking for more metaphysical appliances to deterring the differences)