The year is coming to an end, and unlike the previous years, things are not quieting down. In fact, it’s increasing. 2022 is undoubtedly the year of Generative AI. And with it, not only a flurry of applications but many, many questions, if not anxieties. While other events might have happened in the visual space this past year, nothing will be as much remembered as the shockwave created by the successive public releases of DallE, Stable AI and Midjourney. It’s too bad because other technologies, like Neural Radiance Field ( NeRF), can certainly benefit from more exposure. If anything, 2022 has demonstrated that nothing is ever settled in the world of visual tech.
Generative AI in numbers
Launched in the otherwise sleepy summer of July 2022, Open AI’s DALL-E 2 has more than 1.5 million users generating more than two million images daily. After the release of the first version a year earlier, the quality of Dalle 2 made everyone, skeptics included, pay attention. The same month, MidJourney released its version. It was quickly followed by Stable Difusion, released by a collaboration of Stability AI, CompVis LMU, and Runway with support from EleutherAI and LAION. In the space of a month, computer-generated synthetic media had taken its space on everyone’s favourite computing device.
It took less than a month for the first AI-generated image to win the first prize at an art competition.
In September, Stability AI announced it had raised $101 Million in funding from Coatue, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and O’Shaughnessy Ventures LLC. Almost a dollar an image it helped created in a few months of existence ( 170 million).
Experts estimate that as much as 90 per cent of online content may be synthetically generated by 2026, according to a new report from the European law enforcement group Europol.
In its massive wake, the technology has triggered huge questions about:
- Copyright infringement: The training set of some of these generators was acquired by scrapping sites with clearly defined copyrighted content without authorisation or indemnification.
- Artist rights: some of these generators allow for the easy copying of an artist’s style, also with no authorisation and/or compensation.
- Ethics: while some roughly limit what type of images can be generated, others leave it wide open to possible misuses like violence, racism, abuse/bullying, deepfakes and yet-to-be-defined horrors.
2023 will need to see generative AI clean up its act and self-regulate or risk crippling legislative setbacks. China has already implemented some and the European Union, which has a history of punishing American-made technology it sees as too pushy and invasive, is certainly not far behind. It will also need to mature beyond the ego-satisfying selfie avatars and dog paintings by famous illustrators and apocalyptic landscapes and deliver real-world business solutions. Already, companies like Bria and Claid offer some strong practical applications for businesses. We would like to see more.
2023 will also see generative AI as the new search.
And in a few years, auto-generation.
Truth matters
It is a question of existential threat. Without trust in what we see, we will all lose our ability for judgement and sense. As we will soon no longer be able to differentiate between images taken via light impression and those built via diffusion models. Knowing how and by whom an image is created becomes necessary if we continue to count on images as sources of information.
And a couple of disappointments…
Meta misery
Deflated hype, poor timing, and disappointing experiences, the Metaverse has not lived up to anyone’s expectations. Some have spent millions in digital real estate, only to be the only ones to visit. One key disappointment is certainly the 80’s type visuals reminiscent of Dire Strait MTV’s “Money for Nothing” at a time when every movie or game delivers better-than-reality CGI. While it would have been perfect when the world was anchored down, this technology that requires us to be stuck inside our houses with a mask on our heads, staring at an electronic screen, is the last thing most of us want to do right now. Or ever.
Non-Fungible, is it?
It finally held all the promises that early adopters of the blockchain claimed it would have. It was to revolutionise art and how we consume it. It was decentralized and fair. Everyone could participate and eventually make millions. Until it didn’t. While we all ( most of us) understood that the obscene evaluation of NFTs was to be a bubble to burst on the path to finding its respectability, we also hoped the community would ultimately defend it against greedy speculators. But it did not happen. Once the greedy speculator left the scene, there was nothing left. Not even a technology that could be useful for anything and anyone in the visual space.
The last straw came when it was announced that most marketplaces did not implement the very promising ability of smart contracts to deliver royalties to creators. Greed won, blockchain lost. Again. Not sure if there is an option for a third revival here…
Looking ahead.
2022 has confirmed that visual content is at the centre of the human experience. It is impossible for companies today to sell services or products without the help and support of visual content. And it is equally impossible for us individuals to communicate with each other without using visual content. 2023 will continue to prove how visual tech is instrumental in powering this need. And, of course, we will be here to report on it.
Happy Holidays.
Main Photo by Dmitry Ratushny on Unsplash
Author: Paul Melcher
Paul Melcher is a highly influential and visionary leader in visual tech, with 20+ years of experience in licensing, tech innovation, and entrepreneurship. He is the Managing Director of MelcherSystem and has held executive roles at Corbis, Stipple, and more. Melcher received a Digital Media Licensing Association Award and is a board member of Plus Coalition, Clippn, and Anthology, and has been named among the “100 most influential individuals in American photography”
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