Smartphone cameras became extremely powerful over the last five years. Their leap in quality was largely driven by advancements in computational photography, a technology that uses algorithms, artificial intelligence and sensors to produce sharp, lifelike pictures. Now we all can shoot stunning images that rival the work of professionals.
So what’s next? I hate to say it: faker photos.
Google, an industry leader in smartphone photography, started shipping the Pixel 8, a $700 handset with a suite of AI-powered photo-editing tools. The phone software does much more than adjust the sharpness and brightness of a photo — it uses AI to generate imagery or to remove elements to give you exactly the photo you want.
Imagine, for instance, a photo in which a person’s shoulder is cut off. With Google’s software, you can now tap the Magic Editor button and scoot that person over in the frame. From there, the software will use AI to produce the rest of that person’s shoulder.
Or consider a picture you shot of a friend in front of a historical monument, but the background is crowded with other tourists. Using the same editing tool, you can select the photo bombers and hit the Erase button. In seconds, the strangers will vanish — and Google’s software will automatically generate imagery to fill in the background.
Google has integrated these new AI editing tools into Google Photos, its free photo album app for Android devices and iPhones, which has more than 1 billion users. The company said the Pixel 8 was the first device with the AI editor, which means the same tools could soon arrive for other devices.
Google’s AI photo editor is part of a wave of generative AI, which became popular in the last year after the release of the ChatGPT chatbot, which produces text in response to prompts. Image-based generative AI tools like DALL-E, Midjourney and Adobe Firefly also let people create pictures by simply typing in a prompt, such as “a cat sleeping on a windowsill.”
Yet the Pixel 8 is a turning point. It is the first mainstream phone to bake generative AI directly into the photo creation process at no extra cost, pushing smartphone photography into an era when people will increasingly have to question whether what they see in their images is real — including photos from loved ones.
(Apple’s iPhone camera can add some artificial effects, such as a “stage light” that brightens a subject and blacks out the background, but it stops short of generating fake imagery.)
“This is a really big moment that’s going to change a lot of things about imagery,” said Ren Ng, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, who teaches courses on computational photography. “As we go boldly forth into this future, a photo is no longer a visual fact.”
Google includes a Regenerate button for when you are unhappy with the results, which I tried. But it yielded equally off-putting results each time.
In the same photo, I tried highlighting and deleting the strangers in the background. This worked well but felt unsettling, like watching the “snap” scene in “Avengers: Infinity War,” when half the universe’s population disappeared.
It is early days, and Google expects people to run into imperfections. “This feature is in early stages and won’t always get it right,” the company said in a statement. “We’re looking for feedback to continually improve our models.”
To Use or Not to Use
Here’s my feedback: I don’t think these AI editing tools should be featured so prominently in the photos app of a flagship smartphone, especially in their imperfect state.
And even when the technology matures, there are broader questions — such as the ethical issues of artificial images — to consider and navigate.
Editing photos for clarity and brightness improves an image without altering its substance. But artificially adding elements to a photo crosses a threshold, rendering an image a fake. Using these AI tools to produce and share photos could contribute to the spread of fake media online when misinformation is already rampant and it’s hard to know what to trust.
Ng said it was up to us to decide how to use generative photo technology responsibly, especially now that it has arrived on smartphones. He has set his own limits.
“Anything that touches authenticity to me, as a photographer, would be very problematic,” he said.
As for myself, I would use these AI photo tools to remove visual distractions, like the photo bomber ruining an otherwise great picture, from photos shared among family. But even then, I would use these tools sparingly, and I would not publish the fakery online. — The New York Times.
Oman Observer is now on the WhatsApp channel. Click here
