A few days ago, the Instagram algorithm served me a gorgeous image of a leopard by a photographer I don’t follow. I clicked the caption to find out more. But instead of an explanation of where or how the photo was taken, I was slapped in the face by a tepid stream of AI-generated waffle.
You probably know the style. Quasi-poetic word vomit like: “the animal moved effortlessly through a canvas painted by light and pure chance.” Or this, which accompanied another picture of two penguins: “their paths crossing and uncrossing, a quiet choreography of pursuit and promise.”
I understand why, if you’re not a confident writer, you might be tempted to get ChatGPT to write your captions for you. But if you do, you’re shooting yourself in both feet at point-blank range for several crucial reasons.
First off, generative AI is the mortal enemy of creators. Where once a company would hire a photographer, a copywriter and a designer to make an advertisement, now one person can chuck in a prompt and it’ll spit out something usable – stolen and regurgitated from the very people whose jobs it is replacing.
Why would you want to feed the beast that’s eating you alive?
Next, AI is known to have a colossal environmental impact through building data centers, mining of raw materials and sucking up scarce water resources. For wildlife and landscape photographers to embrace it, without a second thought for the nature they claim to love, is a baffling contradiction.
But most of all, AI-generated captions aren’t even good. They’re bland, meaningless and boring: the written equivalent of chewing on polystyrene packaging. They’re also completely unnecessary. I’m not sure who told photographers that they need to become poets as well, but trust me – they really don’t.
If you’re a photographer on Instagram, your followers want to see your photography. They don’t expect you to be a great writer. They don’t want a novel, they just want to know where you were, how you took the image and what you thought. That’s all.
Don’t believe me? Think I’m a Luddite, the modern-day equivalent of a typist objecting to the invention of the computer? It seems I’m not alone. When I posted about this on Instagram, I received nearly 1000 likes and over 100 comments agreeing that AI-generated writing is “obvious, boring and harmful.”
In an era where trust and authenticity are paramount, your genuine voice, even if it’s not perfect, is worth so much more than a bowl of bland, robotic porridge.
After all, if you’ve clearly used AI to write your caption, it makes me wonder if you used it in your images too!
Bella will be talking on the Canon Spotlight stage at The Photography & Video Show on Tuesday March 17 at 1pm
Save 20% on your Photography & Video Show tickets with code DCW26
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