Image Thinking after Artificial Intelligence

This article proposes that, through synthesising language acts with visualisation processes, generative AI is currently altering the architecture of human cognition, necessitating a new way of understanding our relationship with images. The multifaceted concept of ‘image thinking’ offered in its title refers to: (1) our human thinking about images – a key area of enquiry for visual culture; (2) image generation through cognitive processes, be they human or machinic; (3) images themselves being agents of thinking. Both visual culture and neuroscience use the notion of ‘the mental image’, which is premised on the belief that humans form internal pictures in their minds from words and concepts. Those pictures subsequently facilitate how we see – and know – objects and phenomena. Today a novel feedback loop between language, vision and imagery has emerged, with machines being able to generate images from textual prompts. This latest technological development blurs the line between human imagination and algorithmic generation, thus calling for a radical reassessment of how we perceive, imagine and understand the world. Moving beyond the frequent dismissals of synthetic imagery as average, banal or ‘mean’, the article offers a Vilém Flusser-inspired critical approach that seeks cognitive opportunities for us within the current cultural moment.