'It's happening fast': workers share their AI fears – and hopes

Oliver Fiegel, a 47-year-old photographer based in Munich, was reading a German newspaper recently when he saw a front-page image that looked strangely off.

- Jem Bartholomew

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 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.

Fiegel was frustrated: the use of artificial intelligence instead of a human creative symbolised how his craft, on which he had spent years training, was being undermined by the advent of generative AI tools that were cheaper and quicker, he felt, though often with worse results.

"AI's had the most devastating effect on the industry," said Fiegel, one of dozens of people who have revealed to the Observer how the rise of generative AI tools is changing their working life - for the better or worse - amid seismic economic shifts. "It's happening very fast."

Fiegel, who has been a photographer for about 18 years, said he could no longer make a living and had been forced to radically diversify his income streams. Now he is considering opening a natural wine bar instead.