Article #4038

Photographers, translators, academics and GPs are among those whose jobs are either threatened or aided by the tech

Oliver Fiegel, a 47-year-old photographer based in Munich, was reading a German national Sunday newspaper recently when he saw a front-page image that looked strangely off. The image showed a boy chasing a football on a pitch. But some of the wildflowers on the grass floated without stems. Half the goal net was missing. The boy’s hands were misshapen.

In previous years, many of Fiegel’s photography clients had been newspapers and magazines. But that work has dried up recently. This image, he felt, showed one reason why: “generative illustration”, the supplied caption said.