I would rather not have used the illustrations supplied by the other community league as they were generic, and kind of not very stylish, but this is what they were using. I have no idea at what point or who generated them but yes, it is very ironic in terms of an earth day piece.
As for energy usage, it is true that the companies that hawk and browser-fy AI want us to be dependant on continuous energy waste and that is negative. But, as user of Midjourney and Adobe products, I do see an end. At this point there is NO need to be generating any more low level content like this, all we have to do is RE-USE the wealth of already generated stock content out there. Very soon, all stock art will probably be AI.
I would suggest for a framework that we generally avoid generating content like the one seen in the article but, if need be for time and budget, we be open to using stock content that is already available whether it done by AI or designer. So I am saying, don't waste energy regenerating something that has probably been generated thousands of times. But, at the same time, don't rule out ever using existing AI material for LOW LEVEL content like an event announcement, as a lot of stock resources are already AI.
I have used GenAI for writing before, as creative prompts and a sounding board. It has been massively helpful in these few instances and given a great deal of value, that I have carried on to use myself offline. I would equate those uses to several long showers worth of energy and water. I would do it again, in very select circumstances.
Given the even larger cost of generative imagery, the extremely boring and often inaccurate results, and the number of iterations it takes to just to learn the prompt that might work for you to get what you want… GenAI for images (and even worse still, video), can die in a fire. A fire started by turning off the taps to the water cooling the data centres that facilitate their generation).
I don’t begrudge anyone who has derived joy from the use of these services before—I know I have—but it is becoming increasingly untenable to suggest that it’s worth it for the fun of it as we learn more about how destructive it is.
I wanted to touch base this afternoon to express my concerns over the story that arrived in my inbox this morning about Fire Day activities that contained a fire clearly started by a butane BBQ lighter. As a person who enjoys starting campfires by hand the old fashioned way, it was quite upsetting to see a butane-lit campfire shared without any clarification or attribution. I believe that doing so undermines RCP's credibility as campfire experts. In this age of constant heat against the cold winter nights, we must be vigilant about sharing hand-made friction-produced, or "real" campfires, no matter how important or unimportant it might seem.
Secondly, the irony of the fact that this image accompanied a story about Fire Day activities is just a little too rich for me. Butane BBQ lighters are a massive energy and fuel vampire and has as yet unmeasured detrimental effects on the planet. The power of the tool is such that there are certainly uses that might justify such enormous energy and environment costs, but a cute picture in a local newspaper surely doesn't meet that bar. I know that as a contributor to the paper I've never been given guidance on the use of butane-lit campfires in my work. I'm wondering if RCP has an BBQ lighter usage framework in place, if we don't, we absolutely should.
As someone in the photographic industry I am very apprehensive about the use of AI generated images in general, but especially when they are not stated as such.
I have subscriptions to numerous publications. I have cancelled all those that do not state that they don’t use AI generated images.
I would rather not have used the illustrations supplied by the other community league as they were generic, and kind of not very stylish, but this is what they were using. I have no idea at what point or who generated them but yes, it is very ironic in terms of an earth day piece.
As for energy usage, it is true that the companies that hawk and browser-fy AI want us to be dependant on continuous energy waste and that is negative. But, as user of Midjourney and Adobe products, I do see an end. At this point there is NO need to be generating any more low level content like this, all we have to do is RE-USE the wealth of already generated stock content out there. Very soon, all stock art will probably be AI.
I would suggest for a framework that we generally avoid generating content like the one seen in the article but, if need be for time and budget, we be open to using stock content that is already available whether it done by AI or designer. So I am saying, don't waste energy regenerating something that has probably been generated thousands of times. But, at the same time, don't rule out ever using existing AI material for LOW LEVEL content like an event announcement, as a lot of stock resources are already AI.
What are you thoughts on the use of AI whether imagery or writing?
I have used GenAI for writing before, as creative prompts and a sounding board. It has been massively helpful in these few instances and given a great deal of value, that I have carried on to use myself offline. I would equate those uses to several long showers worth of energy and water. I would do it again, in very select circumstances.
Given the even larger cost of generative imagery, the extremely boring and often inaccurate results, and the number of iterations it takes to just to learn the prompt that might work for you to get what you want… GenAI for images (and even worse still, video), can die in a fire. A fire started by turning off the taps to the water cooling the data centres that facilitate their generation).
I don’t begrudge anyone who has derived joy from the use of these services before—I know I have—but it is becoming increasingly untenable to suggest that it’s worth it for the fun of it as we learn more about how destructive it is.
I wanted to touch base this afternoon to express my concerns over the story that arrived in my inbox this morning about Fire Day activities that contained a fire clearly started by a butane BBQ lighter. As a person who enjoys starting campfires by hand the old fashioned way, it was quite upsetting to see a butane-lit campfire shared without any clarification or attribution. I believe that doing so undermines RCP's credibility as campfire experts. In this age of constant heat against the cold winter nights, we must be vigilant about sharing hand-made friction-produced, or "real" campfires, no matter how important or unimportant it might seem.
Secondly, the irony of the fact that this image accompanied a story about Fire Day activities is just a little too rich for me. Butane BBQ lighters are a massive energy and fuel vampire and has as yet unmeasured detrimental effects on the planet. The power of the tool is such that there are certainly uses that might justify such enormous energy and environment costs, but a cute picture in a local newspaper surely doesn't meet that bar. I know that as a contributor to the paper I've never been given guidance on the use of butane-lit campfires in my work. I'm wondering if RCP has an BBQ lighter usage framework in place, if we don't, we absolutely should.
In complete agreement.
As someone in the photographic industry I am very apprehensive about the use of AI generated images in general, but especially when they are not stated as such.
I have subscriptions to numerous publications. I have cancelled all those that do not state that they don’t use AI generated images.
We don't have an AI policy yet and are looking at making one.