Regarding use on pictures

Summary: There are no AI generated images on this website, and I also have decided not to use generative AI to patch images. I am also trying to keep any retouching in general to a minimum.

Images are not just images when it comes to photography. As its core, in my opinion, photography should be a capture of reality, otherwise it becomes something else. Now we can have discussions on the use of editing, with regards to color, contrast, etc... But the actual content of the picture should not fundamentally be different from reality.

The reason why I think that is that, we already are going through a crisis where reality and basic truths get questioned or rejected. This isn't just because of AI, the reasons predate that. The advent of Photoshop and CGI did more to establish this. However I believe AI is lowering the costs of the whole process so much that we'll get flooded with fake content.

Can AI generated pictures look good? Absolutely. Are AI generated pictures photographs? In my opinion, no. Should AI generated pictures be paraded as photographs. Again, no.

I'm not pretending that my taking a stand on this will fix anything. But if you are wondering whether my content has been AI generated, I want to tell you that I'm actively avoiding it.

Now it is true that some pictures here have been painted over using regular means, and it is true that the same concerns I raised apply here. Such pictures disclose this in the details pane. I will also stop using this, and will undo any painting over that was already published.

Additionally however, I will probably continue to use AI for automated masking. Masking is usually a painstaking process when done by hand, but will not replace content, instead it's used to make the subject stand out from the background, or reduce the relative brightness of the sky. I don't believe that abstaining from using AI for masking is a creative wrong, as long as the actual content of the photograph stays unchanged.

Regarding use on the codebase

Summary: I have used generative AI for minor parts of the website

For instance:

• Better auto-complete
• Querying for problem fixing
• Carrying out the refactoring of large portions of files that would have been time consuming

I did not use AI to create the interface or user experience.