AI-Generated Images and Uncanny Valley
English

AI-Generated Images and Uncanny Valley

β€”

by

design

I work for a web design company and we always need images to put on websites. Until 2022, we took photos ourselves or purchased photos from stock photo libraries. However, since last year, we've been using AI-generated images quite often. I'm not a designer but a coder, so I won't argue my point of view on this matter, but to be honest, I don't see why my coworkers believe AI-generated images are good enough for our purposes. I detect something eerie in those images. They remind me of the uncanny valley. As you might know, the uncanny valley refers to our feeling of eeriness towards robots that look almost, but not quite, human. AI-generated images aren't robots, yet I don't like them because they're almost real but certainly fake.

Furthermore, I'm sad that lots of photographers and models might lose their employment. Things are becoming more difficult, and we coders may not be immune either.

Headline image by coopery on Unsplash

8