“What we did not notice, did not grasp,
did not observe, we cannot acknowledge.”
(Péter Nádas)
It very much appears that we are on the threshold of another technological shift in scale and paradigm; a revolution, if you will, with the global spread of artificial intelligence (AI) potentially marking a genuine milestone in human history as well as a change comparable to that seen during the Industrial Revolution with the arrival of mass production, the earlier dissemination of printed books, or more recently the rise of the Internet, smartphones and social media.
The use of artificial intelligence has become just as natural when it comes to searching, imaging, internet chatting, and even psychology, as it was in the 2010s when people began to use their mobile phones for just about everything, from sending text messages to listening to podcasts and consuming video content. Desktops have become secondary; having a television if at all has become increasingly rare, and is now on a par with watching a film at the cinema. The dominant viewing distance has become mere centimetres, and the interface is now a screen of sixand- a-half-inches.
Behind names such as ChatGPT, DALL-E, Gemini, Midjourney, Firefly, and other similarly evocative labels lies an entirely new area of application with all its hazards and opportunities, the rules of which we are still only superficially beginning to understand. Generative tools based on artificial intelligence open up new horizons in access to information, communication, and artistic self-expression. Yet can creativity using AI still be called self-expression? Or does it already constitute a different, more controlled form of expression, and a kind of auto- collective art?
Trying to keep up with the development of AI is a dizzying experience and much akin to observing a landscape from the window of a speeding train. Even if we manage to do so to some extent, it is impossible to grasp and follow every tiny detail of the change in its entirety. By the time we take in what is happening outside, the landscape that fleetingly unfolds before our eyes has already vanished.
However, this metaphor is not entirely accurate, at least in terms of our perspective as recipients, our relation to it, and our sense of helplessness. This is because progress happens relative to us. We stand still and watch contemporary cyber reality rush past. Although we cannot keep pace, we can try to follow it and at least try to understand what drives and propels this simultaneously fascinating, yet ominous vehicle.
Perhaps the most radical change has been in the field of visual culture. The widespread adoption of generative processes has revolutionised image creation, affecting both the viewer’s gaze and the creator’s imagination. To illustrate the pace of change: approximately 34 million AI-generated images were produced daily in 2024.1 This is an astounding and incomprehensible quantity. Moreover, the unprecedented ease of image production presents new challenges to photographers, professionals working with images, artists and ‘innocent’ observers alike.
The spectrum of optimism or fear of AI varies depending on whom we ask, when we ask, and what exactly we ask. The intensity of reactions to AI is not surprising, as the way text and images are created is transforming visual and textual culture itself, and society is understandably sensitive to such changes.
Péter György, a distinguished aesthetician—who passed away last year—discussing the Internet undermining the Gutenberg galaxy, and the culture of the written word, identified two prevailing attitudes in such cases: “technocratic feigned calmness” and “nostalgia (hysteria)”. 2 He argued that both are dangerous, and recommended a dispassionate analytical perspective instead of extreme reactions.
Hungarian society is polarised and noticeably uncertain. One recent survey3 suggests that the majority of people are concerned about the long-term effects of AI. 59% of the respondents believe that we may lose control over machines in the future, while only just over a third (36.5%) are optimistic.
The situation is no better when it comes to art: 58% of Hungarians fear that AI will diminish the quality of cultural content. At the same time, there is a demand to protect culture created by humans, with a vast majority (85%) expressing a desire to better protect human-created works over AI products. While in most fields; such as IT, economics, law, and law enforcement, AI is seen as an opportunity, when it comes to art, it is primarily viewed as a threat.
In 2022 it made headlines when an AI-generated image won first prize in a fine arts competition in the state of Colorado. 4 In 2023, fifteen thousand writers protested against their works being used to train AI models without their consent. 5 Then, in the same year, leading and influential figures in the tech industry, including Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, called, in an open letter, for a moratorium on artificial intelligence development, arguing that increasing competition and unregulated conditions could make the technology dangerous and uncontrollable.6
An AI trailer for a film has already been made,7 a song created by AI has topped the Hungarian charts on Spotify, 8 and most recently, a country and western song created with artificial intelligence topped the US Billboard charts.9 In 2023, in Hungary, thanks to Miklós Vámos, a book for children was published using an AI designed cover, 10 in addition to a collection of poems partly written by AI,11 numerous video clips, and in 2024, an AI film festival was held in Hungary.12
The pace of change is so rapid and sudden that it challenges belief, and people are finding it increasingly difficult to believe anything. Manipulation and the misuse of videos and texts have become commonplace, and the illustration of fake news with fake photos is an everyday occurrence.
This is not only a technological issue, but also a professional one. Many rightly fear for their jobs and are already feeling AI’s effect on the labour market. Most photographers work as commercial photographers in addition to their creative projects, and a decrease in commercial assignments could have a huge negative impact on the future of the photography profession in Hungary. Yet even if commissions dwindle and AI can automate some of the lower added-value tasks, it is harder to replicate and replace unique perspectives and artistic vision. Or is it?
As an author of essays, poems, and genre texts13, AI is beginning to encroach on the territory of writers and poets, and this trend is not confined to literature. Something has changed irrevocably, shaking the position of authors. It is as if AI were tampering with the very essence of art.
“…in the long run no job will remain
absolutely safe from automation.
Even artists should be put on notice…”
(Yuval Noah Harari)
Photographers and media artists working internationally often interpret photography with the expanded possibilities provided by AI to imply a new kind of collective creative approach. Turkish artist and AI photographer Sarp Kerem Yavuz, for example, advises that artists would do better to regard themselves as filmmakers rather than solitary creators. Therefore, just as the director’s authorship is not questioned in the making of a film, so too should it remain unchallenged in the case of photos generated by artificial intelligence.14 Similarly, Klaus Kellerwessel, a young poet and winner of the Merítés Award, suggests in his essay that “We will perhaps tend to the world of creation as one tends to a garden, just as a director instructs his actors, we will instruct our characters”.15
Sociologist György Csepeli, points out that artificial intelligence cannot replace artists, as it lacks true creative power.16 Péter Nádas finds it lacking in the ability to abstract: “The big question is whether [...] it is capable of abstract thinking. Probably not, at most it artificially regurgitates many diverse aspects of the individual.”17 Csepeli associates AI with improvisation, which could become a kind of idea generator for artists: it experiments, creates “versions,” shortens the process of inspiration, and frees the artist from his burden. (Interestingly, Israeli historian Harari also predicts this kind of productive human-AI cooperation in his book.18)
Yet what if this act renders the gesture meaningless? Perhaps it is precisely this artificial intervention that kills the magic and compromises the alchemy of creation. After all, the path leading up to it is just as integral to the whole work, and the method of creation is often the primary context or subtext of the work.
Meanwhile, AI seems to be defying modest expectations, with its performance seemingly resisting more permissive interpretations. After all, it is already much more than a simple inspiration machine, a text and image manipulation tool capable of producing different versions. AI composes hit songs, wins awards, and documents events that never happened. It is unsurprising that so many people view it as a threat.19
The myth of endangered art is reinforced, conversely, by sensationalist or conservative estimates, such as the belief held by some researchers that artificial intelligence could write a bestseller by as early as 203020 (in 2018 somebody estimated that this would only happen in 204921). In photography, one possible scenario envisions the traditional category of photography transforming and its structure loosening, while in the case of certain works, it will be more accurate to talk about generative mixed media or new media art. In addition to training in classical photography, more and more institutions are offering media design courses, which redefine the ephemeral boundaries between new media and digital art.
In this unfolding hybrid, artificially crafted model, we function less as solitary artists and more as curators, directors, editors, and cutters, or, following the model of American TV production, as creators and showrunners responsible for the development and implementation of a production. Creation no longer depends exclusively on the artist, but on the work as a whole, and on the process that comes together in their hands, while they continue to possess the vision, the inspiration, the idea, and the intuition.
“AI will be the best or worst thing
ever for humanity.”
(Elon Musk)
The panic that accompanied the emergence of photography is often compared to today’s public sentiment. “From today, painting is dead,” said French painter Paul Delaroche upon seeing the first daguerreotype in 1839,22 yet painting and the visual arts continued, and indeed continue to thrive. Whereas photography offered an alternative to realistic genre painting that required much less energy and financial investment, in the case of AI, it challenges the very essence of the work and the validity of its creation, while the role of the artist-author is called into question.
Photographers have always had to keep pace with technological developments, switching from large, static cameras to more compact devices with shorter exposure times, from analogue technology to digital, from the use of photo labs to software-based retouching. At the same time, they had to respond to the challenges posed by camera phones and drone technology (although this is an extremely niche area, it is increasingly rare to find a wedding where no drone footage is taken), and more recently, generative AI has emerged, which creates photo-quality images based on text commands, known as prompts.
This raises the question: to what extent will an ontologically realistic art form (as defined by André Bazin)23 such as photography, that stemmed from the deeply human desire to record and capture reality, be able to accept photographs created using AI as autonomous works of art? After all, one crucial factor, the presence of light’s material imprint, is simply absent, replaced by artificially generated and historically determined shapes and similarities, as well as by calculated and executed corrections. Deep-rooted cultural reflexes originating from the inherent humanity of photography and art in general are triggered when people reject the use of these tools. Regardless of how justified these feelings or reservations may be, they are valid, or at least prevail in the sense that many people regard them as true and appropriate.
Does the loss of its intimate relationship with reality, and its detachment from reality, inflate photography and deprive it of its true value, or quite the opposite? Could AI narrow down the horizon of creation, or expand it? What if it could function as an ironic mirror, i.e. a transformative critical tool? Indeed, could it parody the hollowed-out nature of creation, the constant pressure to press the shutter button, or, conversely, reflect back as a distorted version of itself? Could AI liberate the artistic gaze?
Distinguishing between the artificial and the traditional instead of dark suspicion and fierce investigation, and catching generative participation in artistic products in the act, can lead to a completely new, much more carefree spectator experience, the essence of which is play and discovery. It could engage viewers more deeply, bringing them closer to the origin of the image, allowing them to try to decipher the author’s intention, just as in the case of a conceptual work of art.
AI can shape and transform images and, by completely turning them upside down, it can hide, disguise, deceive or reveal itself. Just as the Internet and smart devices transformed education, leading to the emergence of edutainment, or, as Péter György put it, the logic of seduction has replaced that of persuasion24 so too can the use of AI enable more sophisticated, creative and interactive modes of reception.
Yet will these new, generative, songs of a new era be able to resist the logic of the spectacular?25 Can AI art be more than a facade that hides and obscures the conditions of production? A formal framework that, while masquerading as high art, is actually trying to conceal its own emptiness, while in the background it is subordinated to the interests of Silicon Valley? Does it inspire reflection and criticism, or, on the contrary, does it suspend or even eliminate critical perspectives through its incomprehensibility, technical virtuosity and enigmatic nature?
In addition to the issues mentioned above, the latest AI works raise many more questions, and while they still might not provide reassuring answers, they do offer sufficient material for further reflection, contemplation, and discussion. Conducting a diagnostic analysis, at least in this regard, seems worthwhile for all of us.
1 https://journal.everypixel.com/ai-image-statistics
2 György Péter: Digitális Éden. Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1998. 222–223.
3 https://itki.uni-nke.hu/hirek/2025/01/29/mitgondolnak-a-magyarok-amesterseges- intelligenciarol-kutatasi-jelentes
4 https://24.hu/tech/2022/09/05/mesterseges-intelligencia-altal-generalt-kep-muveszeti-verseny-digitalis-alkotas/
5 https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/autors-guild-open-letter-to-generative-ai-leaders
6 https://hu.euronews.com/2023/03/30/a-mesterseges-intelligencia-fejlesztesenek-felfuggeszteset- kovetlik-tech-cegek-vezetoi
7 https://24.hu/tudmany/2016/09/01/filmelozetest-keszitett-egy-robot/-story-submissions-closed
8 https://telex.hu/after/2025/04/04/mesterseges-intelligencia-dal-spotify-viral-50
9 https://nypost.com/2025/11/14/entertainment/thatbreaking-rust-song-topping-the-billboard-countrycharts-its-ai-generated/
10 https://litera.hu/hirek/mesterseges-intelligencia-illusztralta-vamos-miklos-uj-konyvet.html
11 https://litera.hu/irodalom/konyvajanlo/balasko-akos-a-perceptron-gyermekei-reszlet.html
12 https://welovebudapest.com/program/the-ai-film-festival-2024/
13 https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/pranavdixit/clarkes-world-sci-fi-magazine-ai
14 https://amu.hvg.hu/2024/09 /02/az-ai-hasznalja-a-muveszt-vagy-a-muvesz -az-ai-t/
15 https://litera.hu/irodalom/elso-kozles/angyal-a-gepbena-mesterseges-intelligenciaveszelyei-es-lehetosegei-az-irodalomban.html
16 Csepeli György: Ember 2.0 - a mesterséges intelligencia gazdasági és társadalmi hatásai. Kossuth, 2020. 87–88.
17 https://atlatszo.hu/kult/2024/09/14/nadas-peter-planetarishipokrizis/
18 Yuval Noah Harari: 21 lecke a 21. századra, ford. Torma Péter. Centrál Kiadói Csoport, 2019.
19 https://www.oxford-aiethics.ox.ac.uk/ai-threat-humancreativity
20 Szertics Gergely: MI lesz velünk?!– Talán rossztól félünk... és talán nem remélünk eléggé..., Partvonal, 2024. 206–207.
21 https://www.weforum.org/stories/2018/03/timeline-of-creative-ai/
22 https://epa.oszk.hu/00800/00861/00071/pdf/EPA00861_aetas_2015-04_144-156.pdf
23 André Bazin: A fénykép ontológiája, ford. Ádám Péter, Baróti Dezső, Brencsán János, Erdélyi Z. Ágnes, Hollós Adrienne, Örkényi Zsuzsa = Mi a film?, szerk. Zalán Vince, Osiris Kiadó, 1995, 16–23., http://intermedia.c3.hu/mszovgy1/bazin.htm
24 György Péter, Digitális Éden, Magvető Könyvkiadó, 1998, 228.
25 Guy Debord, A spektákulum társadalma, ford. Erhardt Miklós, Open Books, 2022.