For centuries, humans have created and used technology to extend our vision and visual perception.
Visual Technologies
The invention of photography was a turning point in human visual technology, but advances in related technologies such as lenses and artificial lighting have also transformed the ways people see and interact with the world.
Key ideas:
- Humans use technology to extend our natural vision and visual perception abilities.
- Computers can be programmed to do visual tasks, such as facial recognition.
- Increasingly, images are created and used as data without any human involvement.
President George Washington used this pair of spectacles and others. In his time, eyeglasses were a sign of old age or disability. When he once put on spectacles in the middle of a speech to military officers in 1783, it was perceived as symbolic of his long service to the young nation.
This 1785 sketch by Benjamin Franklin demonstrates the idea of bifocal eyeglasses for users who benefit from different lenses for seeing near and far. Franklin is credited with inventing bifocal lenses, though they were very difficult to manufacture at the time.
Glass lenses necessary in photography are also essential for eyeglasses, telescopes and microscopes. These inventions transformed humans' ability to visually understand our world and beyond. In the century after photography was invented, new technologies such as X-ray and night vision changed our understanding of mediated vision.
Images as Data
The result of digital technology for image-making and computing is that images are now data, which means they can be classified and understood in ways unrelated to human vision. In the essay "Invisible Images (Your Pictures Are Looking at You)," artist and author Trevor Paglen writes about how the common understanding of images has not kept up with recent technological advances:
"Visual culture has changed form. It has become detached from human eyes and has largely become invisible. Human visual culture has become a special case of vision, an exception to the rule. The overwhelming majority of images are now made by machines for other machines, with humans rarely in the loop."
Many of the images with the most impact in our world have little in common with the creativity and artistry of photojournalism; they are instead functional images used for purposes such as monitoring traffic, scanning license plates, and identifying people with facial recognition. The growth of computerized surveillance has both benefits and risks in society. This video explains how this technology works and emphasizes why some experts are concerned about privacy implications:
✓ What is one benefit of technological advances in image-based surveillance, either as individuals or as a society? What is one potential risk?
🗨 In general, do you think the growing use of images as data is concerning or advantageous?
Explosion of AI Image Generation Technology
Image-recognition technology has made it possible to connect text information with image information, such as image recognition software that recognizes someone's face in multiple photos and or Google Image Search that retrieves images based on a text search. A major advancement in recent years is the growth of artificial intelligence image generation, meaning software that creates images rather than just recognizing or combining them. A massive leap in this technology occurred in 2022, which made it possible for ordinary people to use AI image generators. Most AI images are not convincingly photorealistic unless the software is trained on a very specific dataset of images, but the technology is rapidly progressing and convincingly mimics artistic styles in painting, graphic design and other visual art.
Watch this video for an explanation of how AI image generation works and a demonstration of how it compared to human photography as of late 2022.
This slightly longer Vox explainer video is also a useful explanation of how the technology developed between 2017 and 2022.
The rapid growth of AI image generation has led to two major concerns about this technology:
- It could be used for disinformation purposes that mislead people into thinking untrue things have actually happened. Or, people could lose trust in real visual evidence.
- Training AI software relies on the work of real artists, typically without their permission, which devalues the art and intellectual property of visual artists. It is seen by some people as a theft of artists' work and a threat to their livelihood.
Some people think AI images should be regulated or labeled in some way to minimize potential harm. What do you think?