Steve McCurry in Delhi: AI has no place in news photography

Steve McCurry said in Delhi that artificial intelligence has no place in documentary or news photography.

“If you’re doing documentary photography or news photography, then there’s no place at all for AI,” McCurry said at a Leica store in Delhi.

McCurry, known for *Afghan Girl*, said readers of newspapers and magazines expect photographs to be factual. For documentary work, he said, photographers need to be present in the places they document—whether on a street, in the rain or at a tea plantation—rather than creating an image on a computer.

He distinguished journalism from art, saying artists can use AI to create a “fantasy world.” But photographers documenting the world should show it “with all its flaws,” he said.

McCurry also described smartphones as useful tools for recording everyday life. The images people make on them are “kind of a memory,” he said, comparing them to ordinary communication rather than literature or poetry.