In previous posts we have investigated the impact of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the job market. While there are actually different professions that have been impacted by AI, there has been one service in particular that went through some radical changes – stock images.
Indeed, it isn't that complicated to generate credible pictures of generic themes, from Christmas and New Year's Eve to business meetings using AI text-to-image tools.
In these cases, employing AI for image creation can be a useful solution, particularly for independent publications, websites and social media (I have done it in previous posts and I found this exercise great to hone my skills at writing prompts, but also useful to come up with large images and illustrations that may turn a long post into a more visually appealing article for readers).
Yet it is clear that major publications, facing financial challenges exacerbated by the declining ad market, have turned to AI not only for efficiency, but also as a cost-cutting measure.
During this year some major publications have been using AI just to cut staff: as you may remember from a previous post, earlier on this year German leading tabloid Bild announced a €100m cost-cutting plan that resulted in hundreds of job redundancies. The layoffs were partly due to tasks that can now be performed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automated processes in the digital world. Other publications followed its example.
Alarming statistics from Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc. (Download The-Challenger-Report-October-2023-1) revealed a somber reality: without considering the cuts from November onwards, nearly 20,000 jobs have been eliminated throughout the media industry for a variety of reasons.
In the last part of this year nearly 100 staffers were let go at Vice Media Group and G/O Media shut Jezebel, letting 23 editorial staffers go.
More recently, both Vox and Condé Nast announced workforce reductions. Vox, responsible for publications like New York magazine, Grub Street, and NowThis, implemented a 4% staff reduction, equating to a minimum of 20 employees, as reported by the New York Times. This marks the second round of cuts in the year, following a prior 7% workforce reduction in various departments during January.
In the case of Condé Nast, the renowned publisher of Vogue, Vanity Fair, Architectural Digest, Bon Appétit, and the New Yorker, a 5% reduction in headcount has been announced, impacting over 300 employees.
In the recent Vox and Condé Nast workforce reductions, AI wasn't mentioned, but the declining ad market, which makes up a large portion of revenue for these companies, has been blamed by commentators. Magazines seem to have shrinking budgets that push them to cut their staff and to invest less money on writers, but also on their photographic archives or in stock image subscriptions, with some publications turning to AI-generated images that do not even look too refined and sophisticated.
Surprisingly, even prestigious magazines like Women's Wear Daily have started using them for generic business pieces. These images, bought from Adobe Stock, lack the refinement expected from a publication with a substantial archive, and their imperfections make them easily recognizable as AI-generated.
In one recent instance, WWD illustrated an article about retail strategy with the image of woman with her back to the camera carrying shopping bags, the configuration of the bag on the right and the jacket belt reveal it as being AI-generated, as proved by the user's portfolio on Adobe Stock. The image is clearly marked on the site as "Generated with AI", but WWD doesn't mention it.
The portfolio of this particular user also includes images of workers in different contexts, some of them, like an image of men working in a sweatshop, generated with the assistance of Artificial Intelligence. It is easy to recognise this image as AI-generated as Artificial Intelligence generates distortions in the depiction of sewing machines and tends to create pseudo-industrial sewing tools.
Hopefully, publications such as WWD will refrain from utilizing such AI-generated images, particularly in serious reports addressing human rights and exploitation in the fashion industry. The use of such images has indeed the potential to compromise the authenticity and credibility of the reporting.
The question that arises is whether these prominent publications should be more transparent about the use of AI-generated images especially when depicting realistic subjects (as opposed to illustrations). The lack of clarity raises indeed concerns about how readers perceive these visuals - will they assume they are produced with AI or will they think they are real?
Though AI offers cost savings, the ethical implications of using low-quality or easily recognizable AI-generated images without proper disclosure pose a threat to the quality of esteemed publications. This risk further extends to eroding the trust of their audience, something particularly noteworthy considering the subscription fees associated with accessing their articles.
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