I finally showed my dad an AI generated landscape last week

He's been a photographer for 40 years and I was nervous to bring up AI art at all. He stared at the picture of a mountain with bioluminescent trees for a solid minute then said "the light on the moss doesn't feel like real light." Made me wonder if AI art will ever fool people who know the real thing inside and out?

2 comments

2 Comments

jennifer_west3d ago

Hold up though, your dad's comment is actually pretty spot on about light physics. AI still struggles with subsurface scattering, that soft glow you get when light goes through thin things like leaves or moss. Real photographers know that light doesn't just sit on top of things, it moves through them a bit. That's something AI keeps messing up even in the good ones.

parker_bell3d ago

Is that light issue something you can spot in most AI landscapes or only in the really complex ones like with wet or translucent surfaces? I'm curious because a friend of mine who paints says AI messes up the way shadows hit uneven ground too, but she couldn't really explain it like your dad did with the moss. Do you think these problems are just a matter of time before AI figures them out, or is it something fundamental about how the tech works that might always be a little off?