You can still hear the digital rustle of leaves in the autumn of 2022. Since then, new AI image generators, models, versions and apps have emerged, making it faster and easier than ever to create images and make visual connections.

All you need to do is enter some text or even a few strokes of a sketch, and artificial intelligence will do the rest. In 2023, creating images seems so easy and fast that not only artists but also large creative and advertising agencies are getting nervous. Is this the end of creativity and the jobs that depend on it?

Hold on. It’s still too early to drag Photoshop into the trash and throw away the camera!

But where is the journey heading?

It’s a question that no one can really answer. Does it really come faster than expected, creativity at the touch of a button?

Enough hyping. Let’s pause for a moment. What is this software we call “intelligent” anyway? The programs that generate these AI images are called Stable Diffusion, MidJourney, DALL-E, run on a computer at home or in a data centre, and are already used by millions of people. Will they take over the world? No, because…

Image generators are tools that we have created and that we also operate.

When it comes to generating images with the help of artificial intelligence, we humans still have three major levers in our hands:

• Image Sources: It is us humans who decide which terms go with which images when we train these models. Like any other AI, it needs prior knowledge, which is first created and then selected by humans. If the image sources contain significantly more biased images of women or white men, the AI will not be so ‘intelligent’ as to iron out this bias. We humans have to do that.
  
• Work order: It is we humans who use the AI tool and give commands in text and image that should come out at the other end, at least approximately. Only after an input comes an output. As with any tool, we have to learn how to use it. Practice makes perfect.
  
• Further use: And finally, we humans decide what happens to the image we create. Are we happy with the result or not? Which of the images will we continue to use, share or sell? What rights have we actually violated in the process, or has the image simply inspired us to go our own way?

No better than a cow?

Image generators are actually nothing more than ruminants. Like cows, sheep or goats, they swallow, regurgitate, chew and digest their food. But is this good for our creativity? Or are we entering a one-way street?

Artificial intelligence cannot make original new connections, it can only build on connections it has seen before.

This is the clear advantage of humans, who, let’s assume, have an infinite imagination and should be able to create new original connections and ideas that have never existed before.

Our creativity remains an indispensable trait that only human intelligence can provide, and it will continue to be invaluable.

In interplay with inspiration

Artificial intelligence – here in the form of image generators – allows us to channel our inspiration in a completely new way: We play the first ball, the AI reacts. We react and play the second ball, the AI reacts.

Anyone who has ever created images with artificial intelligence will see how fascinating it is when an image is created in these steps with this system. This can be a large image or just a detail in the image. It is not uncommon for the result of this image calculation process from existing image material – and it is not much more than that – to be discarded.

But, and this is where it gets interesting, AI opens up interesting avenues of thought. You are confronted with connections that you might not have thought of in your head. Creativity and inspiration are always an exchange. Especially between us humans – no matter what tool we use.

Let’s learn to use AI tools. Maybe they won’t replace us, but they will take us a step further.