Writing Problems: AI and Disorientation of Reality

Stop sharing AI-generated images!

Poets need to stay aware. Poets need to insist upon reality and upon the language. If not, then who? AI images are deliberately designed to weaken our sense of reality, to disorient, to erase what our minds know is true or false.

Photos have always been altered, but when AI exists only to promote disinformation, misinformation, and disorientation, the poets’ responsibility has to be engaged on both moral and aesthetic levels.

The documentary filmmaker Erroll Morris did extensive research on two photos by James Fenton taken on April 23, 1855 during the Crimean War. He cites the following two sentences by Susan Sontag from Regarding the Pain of Others:

According to Sontag, Fenton deliberately made a deceptive image by moving cannonballs from the side of the road (Photo A) to the middle of the road (Photo B) to make it appear more dramatic or dangerous.