Can we please stop calling AI-generated images “photographs?”

The introduction of artificial intelligence into photography has created opinions nearly as varied as political ideals. On the one hand, AI tools in Photoshop save a lot of time – but on the other, many are legitimately concerned over the impact on everything from fake news to creative careers. However, there’s one thing I think photographers and the tech industry as a whole need to agree on: stop calling AI generations “photographs.”

The word "photograph" mashes the two Greek words for light and writing together, an origin that both poetically and literally means writing with light. The Cambridge dictionary gives the word the meaning “a picture produced using a camera” while Merriam-Webster gives the somewhat longer definition of “the art or process of producing images by the action of radiant energy and especially light on a sensitive surface (such as film or an optical sensor).”

Dictionary nerding aside, generative artificial intelligence carries a heap of risk for misuse when not properly labeled. Many of the risks associated with AI, including fake news, can be negated at least in part by properly labeling it as what it really is: a computer-generated image.

A graphic created by AI isn’t created with light but rather computer code. AI generations are not real – and they certainly are not photographs.

Leave the word "photograph" – and the shortened form, "photo" – to real cameras. Leave the word "art" to works created by an artist capable of emotion. Use words that have no lexicographic ties to a camera or artist, such as "image" and "generation" to refer to work that is created by computer software. And, to give human graphic artists, painters and illustrators their due, the word "art" needs to drop from our generative AI vocabulary, too.

Thankfully, many platforms are careful to use the term "image" rather than "photograph". Others are not so careful with words.

An image entirely generated with AI is a clear-cut decision: it's an image, not a photograph. Images that started in-camera but ended with Photoshop's generative tools have a less clear-cut answer. How much editing makes a photograph no longer a photograph – ten percent? Twenty-five percent? It's a question that deserves discussion. At the very least, as my colleague Mike said, photographers must be transparent about how much of a photograph originated in-camera.

Generative AI images should be flagged as such, yes, but that label should not include the words "photo" or "photograph". Hyperrealistic generations should be called what they are – an AI-generated image is not a photograph.

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Before you go, make sure you know how to spot an AI-generated image.