How a Pro Photographer Feels About AI

I have a complicated relationship with AI. Artificial intelligence is here. It is hurting my industry, but I use it every day at the same time. It's in everything that I use. It's in my CRM. It's in software that I use for retouching. I use retouching plugins in Photoshop that are AI based. It's in software that helps photographers call their images faster. It's everywhere. It's everywhere because AI fundamentally makes our life easier in many ways. while at the same time destroys a lot of things.

So, it's very difficult for me to not champion AI when it makes my life and your life a lot easier. But I have a problem with companies replacing people or not hiring people because AI can do those jobs. I believe, and I've said it on this channel before, that uh AI should be supplementary to helping people. It should be your teammate, your co-founder, your co-pilot, if you will. I don't think we should be using AI to replace people.

I don't think we should be replacing people with AI, but I think when it comes to people or companies or even technology that makes things better for humanity, we should embrace AI. For example, on farming equipment, when an AI via a camera and lasers can get rid of all the weeds by identifying and pinpointing what on the ground is a weed, and it can do that at the benefit of getting rid of toxic chemicals that we would otherwise be spraying on the plants as pesticides to kill the weeds, then that's clearly a a net benefit for humanity.

When AI is being used in radiology to screen imaging for early signs of tumors that even people can't detect, that's a net benefit for humanity. Do I think AI should replace radiologists? No. But I think radiologists should be open to using AI if it makes their job better and easier and it makes everything better for humanity. If a farmer doesn't need to drive a tractor around a field, you know, to spray chemicals, and that makes their life better, I'm all for it.

Bring on the robots. But we still have to make sure that we are building a social safety net for people who are impacted. So, to that end, I say tax the robots and funnel that money into a universal basic income or a guaranteed livable basic income. But those are my beliefs beyond the scope of really what I do here on the channel. As a small business owner, AI allows me to do things better and faster than I ever could possibly do myself or afford to pay someone to do.

If you're using AI to replace people, that's If you are using AI to improve your life and the things that you do, I think that's fine. If you are instead of hiring a photographer or hiring a writer or hiring a brand consultant and using AI to do those things that I don't think that's good for humanity. I don't think it's good for people in general. I don't think it's a good business practice cuz if we keep putting people out of work, who's going to have money to buy the services and products that we provide?

We have to approach AI in our photography businesses with a a hand and and the same approach that like we wouldn't want to be replaced as photographers by our clients and we wouldn't want to replace someone else. At the same time, I'm a good writer. I just think it takes a lot of time for me to like develop ideas and I don't think that I have the particular marketing expertise as someone who you know like David Oggovie or or an someone who's been doing copywriting for 20 years.

I don't have that knowledge. I'm not that dedicated. But using a large language model like chat GPT or Google Gemini or Anthropic Cloud can give us the ability to tap into those types of personas that we just couldn't afford to pay. Multinational companies can afford to pay those people and they should. But me as a solo entrepreneur who currently in the in the economic conditions that we are facing here in Canada with tariffs and other economic challenges, it's very difficult for many photographers like myself who are commercial and corporate photographers primarily before they are consumer photographers to make a living.

And that's a lot of photographers that I've been talking to recently. So AI can be helpful. It can be good. And I have a number of strategies that I've I've learned with AI to like make my life easier and better and produce better results than I think the average person can produce because I've watched a lot of videos on it. I've learned a lot of like techniques and and things that you can do. And I'll I'll be introducing those into the channel.

I want you to know that before that starts to happen. This is my stance. My stance politically and my values personally are people are more important than profits and they should be more important than profits. Private equity firms destroying companies, replacing people with artificial intelligence, that's just a scourge on humanity. It's a scourge on society. And I think AI used in such a way will lead to the downfall of capitalism because without public support measures in place for the people who are displaced by automation and AI and at the pace that it's happening, it's going to be incredibly difficult for us to weather that storm.

Artificial intelligence is one of the greatest achievements in the history of man. from the steam engine to the car, the computer, the personal computer, the internet, and now artificial intelligence. It's such a fundamental shift in society and who we are as a people and what we have to do to get through it, but there's no one ringing the bell. You know, the train has left the station, as they say. artificial intelligence is here and we can either like figure out how to make it benefit our lives and to improve our lives in a in a meaningful sustainable and impactful way or we can continue yelling at the train from the platform while we're getting left behind.

I don't want to get left behind. So, I'm embracing the technology that is currently available to us while being very very careful that in the what I'm using it for and how I'm using it, I'm not replacing someone or putting someone out of work. And again, the criteria for me, am I replacing someone that I already work with, or am I potentially using AI instead of hiring someone, and this is the key, that I could afford.

A lot of small business owners cannot afford highle copywriters. Solo entrepreneurs cannot afford a marketing team, cannot afford social media consultants. So where AI can augment and make our businesses stronger and help us to live a a safe sustainable life where we're not in fear of going out of business, learning to adapt and change to the technological climate that currently exists. then I'm going to be on the train and I'm going to do whatever I can to make sure that my business and me have a roof over my head and have food on my plate.

And I think that's something that you should consider as well.