AI - another nail in the coffin of Stock Photography
Now and then I have that argument about "Is Stock Photography" dead?
What I can tell, not at all. At least not for the agencies. Some of them thrive, other, not so well, observing how they increase their pie or ask for new fees.
With a few exceptions, it would be hard to make Stock Photography a profession, at least if selling your photos via the usual big players on the market.
Lately, AI makes that situation even worse.
Here is an example from Adobe Stock, where I am uploading some of my photographs for licensing.
A few months ago Adobe Stock decided to accept AI generative content. Since then, I see a few key changes:
The approval period increased from a few days up to 4 weeks.
The rejection rate increased.
- Their database will soon have more AI generated stuff than original works, diminishing the quality provided
- Many valued contributors are complaining not only of those delays but also to the fact there are "players", or let's use the word "abusers" who cheat and hide the fact the uploaded stuff is AI generated.
I guess they will get some good payment checks before getting busted.
Does that sound familiar to you? ;)
Check here, in this screenshot from the home page of my account, those yellow and blue ribbons:
Some screenshots from their support forum.
Long story short, my humble opinion is Adobe made a mistake by allowing AI generated content.
I hope I am wrong and the future will show.
My personal perspective is that Stock Photography is turning more and more into a side hustle, mainly for enthusiasts with plenty of free time, who have no other idea what to do.
Buy my stock photos at Alamy: https://www.alamy.com/portfolio/112427.html
Buy my 1/1 exclusive NFTs on OpenSea: https://opensea.io/LightCaptured
Buy my stock photos at Adobe Stock: https://stock.adobe.com/contributor/206416265/lightcaptured
Copyright: LightCaptured
All the photographs, digital art and text in my posts, unless specified otherwise, are my own property and created by me.
If you wish to use any of my works, please drop me a line!
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AI turns from a toy into a competitor who does not need money, and this is very bad because it does not care about quality, only quantity, although it is only a mechanism in the hands of those who decide to make their lives easier :)
!PIZZA
True! However I am far away from thinking its investors and creators unleashed it from altruistic motives. Once again we will see it is all about money and power.
Thank you!
i really agree with you..
have you managed to sell some stock photos?
Yes, I started a few years ago ;)
Have you?
Adobe has made many mistakes in their history and this one was surprising. I would have thought that a company of their size and standing would divide images into two categories - original (ie by a human) and AI generated. Have two separate teams and let the AI submissions wait in line in their gazillions.
This is why I think PoH is going to be the next big thing. People value things created by people (at least many of the people I know do) and eventually the AI images will get old. I personally think it may take some time, but look at the NFT craze - it died down after a couple years to a low simmer. Just keep being original, it counts.
I deeply hope you're right, but how do we distinguish? AI is now in its kindergartens stage and it is already too hard to tell if something has been AI-generated. In a few years it could be impossible to tell.
Many people are discussing the same matter and I am sure the new AI content doesn't bring Adobe new millions of revenue so they afford to take a cut of that and hire a new team of QAs. It is obvious they are using the same quality review team to filter/accept the two types of content. Also obvious, they can't keep up with the volume as there are already visuals in the "non-AI" section that are obviously generated by AI. It's gonna be a huge mess soon...
That's exactly the problem we will all be facing soon. I really don't see good things coming from AI in that regard. Did you hear about people receiving AI generated ransom calls? Scary stuff. And then worldcoin orbs are scanning people's eyes - gosh it really is starting to sound like a scene out of a 1970s science fiction movie with a dystopian end.
Adobe needs to make an adjustment accordingly, but whether they will or not - time will tell. I do think it's really unfair on people that take and edit their own pictures to be shoved in the same bag with the AI generated images.
Probably it's worse than what we know ;)
Actually, my partner received a call by "Nataly" who asked her some strange questions about a product and where she lives. Then we saw on the news that call has been received by thousands of compatriots. We are still able to distinguish AI-generated noise but as AI trains much faster than us, people, soon we won't be able to, I am afraid.
I tried Wirestock for a bit, but wow, that was a buzz kill with all of the rejections. Now they want people to pay to submit photos on their site if their acceptance rate is too low.
Wow. That feels so unfair :)
A similar, UK-based agency tried to do this some time ago, they lost me as contributor and other folks too.
Not to mention some of the agencies take a cut of 80-90% of the sell price...
Business as usual :D
yeppers, it's a racket for those on top.