I was reading "Stillness is the Key" from Ryan Holiday and in it there's a passage that refers to the Information Age. (Get the book here, and no I don't get any kickback for this)
As I laid there reading I stared at the book, then it hit me, what a smack in the face - thankfully not the book hitting my face as has happened before when I read before bed. Just the thoughts that started reeling in playback mode of my life.
I have lived at the tail end of "Information Age" and here we are now in 2023, in the transitional phase of living in the dawning of the "AI Age", or Artificial Intelligence. One could argue, it's also somewhat artificial information with the onset of things like Chat GPT, Google's Bard, and more.
Recently during a conversation I was having, someone said AI has been around for much longer than people realize, definitely not in the totality of what we're experiencing now. Both of us being around the same age, their example was spell check, and auto grammar suggestions going back to our generation's big leap into technology with computers in school. We were both of the age where we went from school papers being hand written (so your teacher could also assess your writing), to optionally typed out (1.5 spaced, two pages, hah..oh memories), to typed out and no hand written was allowed. When I graduated in 2004 email was fairly new to the masses and absolutely not what it is today, so I cannot imagine what the system is like now. Email, apps, everything in schools is tech. How the kids keep up is beyond me. I am good at tech, and...there's a learning curve no doubt.
I for one am anxious and also excited to see where this age takes us. I don't think the world will be ever be in a place like what Hollywood has predicted. Terminator will not exist, it cannot exist. AI requires human thought, it requires human interaction, it requires human input to exist. After all, ChatGPT doesn't work unless you put information in.
Which leads me to the point I am making.
AI may be taking over the internet, it is certainly a creators nightmare to a degree, to know that anything you upload can now be used to create AI art, documents, blog posts (don't worry this is all me, coming from my brain), video scripts, you name it, the potential is endless. We don't know the extent to which it will be used however for what I do...
What it will never take over is the humanity behind a photo. What it will not be able to do is capture the scene of a band playing and the people enjoying it. What it will never be is authentic. What it will always be is an iteration of an iteration, a copy of a copy. I am grateful to have the connections I do and the work that I do where I can capture this kind of stuff and it's things that will never be captured again. Moments of authenticity in the human experience that maybe we don't realize are happening, maybe we do. Moments that we will not get back again in all of the experience of our lives. This is why you should go to the show, why you should do that thing, why it matters.
I do what I do because I dedicated my life to capturing a human experience by picking up a camera in the first place, whether it's nature, food, architecture, or concerts and events.
Featured in this post is, and in particular order... (click on a name for the website)
Motherwind Rock Fest Porcupine Tree Smoke Free Home Stephen Cooper and The Nobody Famous Civic Symphony of Green Bay Skillet Music Powerman5000 The Verve Pipe Celisse The Brevet Mile of Music Festival
Carissa Babe
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