Consumers Prefer AI-Generated Images To The Real Thing: Implications for the Publishing Industry

To those on the Luddite Fringe, you have my sympathies. Keep standing on the beach, watching the tide come in all around you. King Canute would be proud!

In a significant development earlier this month, Google and Scandinavian publisher Bonnier News published research indicating that AI-generated images are proving more popular than real photographs.

Oops! So much for "AI can never compete with human creativity" nonsense. Wake up and smell the AI coffee! It can and is!

This revelation comes after the Google and Bonnier News collaboration to develop a product called BonsAI, which has shown higher click-through rates (CTR) for AI-generated images than traditional stock images.

Research Findings

Early results from the BonsAI project reveal that AI-generated images significantly outperform stock images in advertisements, with some cases showing an astounding 100% improvement in CTR. While Bonnier and Google do not (yet) advocate for the use of AI-generated images in news articles, the findings highlight the growing acceptance and preference for AI-conjured visuals in the advertising and media sectors.

Industry Impact

The rapid uptake of AI by news organisations is evident, with around half of newsrooms reportedly using chatbots by mid-2023. This trend suggests a potential shift in the industry, where publishers might increasingly opt for AI-generated images over traditional photographs. Such a shift could have profound implications for photographers and stock image providers, who may face reduced demand for their work.

Evolving Needs

In response to these industry changes, Getty Images and Shutterstock recently announced a $3.7-billion merger, aiming to meet the evolving needs of the creative, media, and advertising industries. The combined entity plans to invest in content creation, event coverage, and product and technology innovation, while also generating annual cost synergies between $150 million and $200 million by year three.

Note the phrase "evolving needs".

This is the simple reality of life in the era of AI, and hoping that we can go back to steam locomotives and clunky typewriters, a time when the world was oh, such a nicer place, when a television was an ugly square box in the corner of the room, and when teachers routinely flogged children and police officers routinely beat up suspects, is of course our right. And our fantasy.

Living In The Real World

But when we wake up, we have to live in the real world, where paperbacks co-exist with hardbacks, where ebooks coexist with printed books, and where AI co-exists with human creators.

Jobs will be lost. New jobs will be created.

Anyone in the industry who thought they had a job for life needs their head examined. The publishing industry has evolved and will keep evolving, whether we like it or not.

My Undying Admiration

To those of you knock out your manuscripts with a quill pen, or on an old typewriter, packaging up the liquid-in soaked pages into a big brown envelope, then popping along to the post office to pay for a horse-drawn carriage to deliver it, you have my undying admiration.

To those of you who watch a dusty-valved black and white TV, have a phone in the hall and use a Box Brownie camera, you have my undying admiration.

To those of you who have never bought anything online, don't sell your books on Amazon, pay the chimney sweep to come once a month and send a boy up the flue, and go on holiday on a sailing ship, you have my undying admiration.

You are the last of the dinosaurs, and have every right to rule the Earth. Until something new comes along and replaces you.

Lost Sleep

Pretending progress isn't happening is everyone's right. And it's a wonderful life. I envy you.

The only downside is, all that sleep you lose worrying about those unemployed stable boys, coal miners, coal merchants, candlestick makers, sailing ship crews, parchment makers, quill makers, camera film makers, typewriter manufacturers, postmen, milkmen, shop assistants and shop owners, mangle makers, thatchers, wheelwrights and chimney sweeps that were left behind by progress.

The publishing industry isn't immune to progress, and in fact thrives on it, once the Luddite resistance wanes and reality kicks in. The printing press. Paperbacks. Online bookstores. Self-publishing. Ebooks. Digital streaming. Digital audiobooks...

Yet somehow the publishing industry is still here, bigger and stronger than ever.

The rise of AI-generated images presents both opportunities and challenges for the publishing industry. While it offers innovative ways to engage audiences and enhance advertising effectiveness, it also raises questions and concerns about the future of traditional photography and the livelihood of photographers, just as AI raises questions about the future of writers, narrators, translators, editors, et al.

As the industry continues to evolve, stakeholders will need to navigate these changes carefully to balance innovation with ethical and legal considerations.

But evolve it will. And our roles in the industry, whatever they may be, are just as fragile and potentially dispensable as the roles of the stable boys, coal miners, coal merchants, candlestick makers, sailing ship crews, parchment makers, quill makers, camera film makers, typewriter manufacturers, postmen, milkmen, shop assistants and shop owners, mangle makers, thatchers, wheelwrights and chimney sweeps that gave us the lifestyle and luxuries we cannot live without today.

To those on the Luddite Fringe, you have my sympathies. Keep standing on the beach, watching the tide come in all around you. King Canute would be proud!

To everyone else, welcome to the era of AI. It won't be painless. There will be casualties. And our lives will never be the same again. Just as our children's lives will not be like our lives, and our lives were not like our grandparents' lives, and their lives were not...

You get the picture.

Adapt and thrive!