AI Headshots – Yea or Nay?

I am seeing more and more AI headshots everywhere, and I’ve gotta say … not a fan. At first blush, I get it. There are a lot of good reasons why people opt for these:

• Price – You can find multiple options for headshot software for under US $50. Professional portraits can easily cost 5-10 times that much or more, depending on what is being asked for.
• Speed – If you are in a rush, it’s tempting to go with what’s available *right now* because something is better than nothing.
• Convenience – You don’t have to go anywhere, borrow or buy clothes, or try to make time for it in your already-too-busy day, and there’s no waiting to receive the finished product.

On the flip side, there are plenty of reasons not to like AI headshots, including:

• Lack of authenticity – No matter how good they are, they’re just … off. The people just don’t look quite human. They don’t capture your personality.
• Limited creativity – There is a lot of ‘sameness’ in AI-generated images. The backgrounds are the same, the general clothing choices are the same, hair is the same, poses are the same. Bo-ring – it reminds me of old-school chain photography studios that were used for corporate photos. On top of that, AI isn’t good at understanding natural movements – people tilt their heads, for example, and AI isn’t good at capturing that in a realistic way. Your AI photographer can’t play with setting, lighting, or framing the same way a human photographer can. Conversations with a human photographer can lead to more natural and relaxed facial expressions. They may suggest props that can be part of the frame. In other words, a good portrait captures much more than just your facial features – it captures your whole person.
• Problematic images – AI-generated images struggle to adequately deal with human subjects. Just this week, I have seen an AI-generated image with a three-armed person, one with two hands in the same sleeve, and another one with the thumb on the opposite side of the hand it was showing. If you have to spend hours refining your prompts, teaching the AI, and uploading new selfies to get what you want, maybe hiring a person is more efficient?
• Privacy concerns – There are legitimate privacy concerns anytime you are uploading personal data and images. Geolocation data could potentially let people know where you live. Companies could sell your images to facial recognition software services. Your photo could be hacked and attached to something that you aren’t aware of and/or don’t support.
• Impacts on human photographers and visual artists – Obviously, the more people use software for their photography, the less demand there is for human photographers. Beyond that, AI can fairly easily create artwork “in the style of” [insert famous name here] essentially leading to potential copyright violations and more.

My position continues to be that the best way to use AI is to automate mundane, repetitive tasks so that you have more time available to dedicate to work that requires human skills, including portrait photography. People want to do business with other humans, not AI-generated people bots.