Smartphone AI transforms reality into video game visuals

The Google Pixel 8 appears to feature an AI-powered photo editing option that lets you completely change people’s faces. Reliable leakage Mobile technology reporter And leaker Kamila Wojciechowska to the phone site 91mobiles Feature revealed, namely Like use Cyberpunk 2077A fleet of customizable facial expressions In photo modeExcept it’s real life, and it’s much scarier.

In the leaked promo for the Pixel 8, which is expected to be launched with the Pixel 8 Pro On October 4th, the narrator lists a number of camera options. “Designed by Google, with AI controlled by you,” they say. The Pixel 8 can do what we now voraciously expect from most smartphones —Night vision, Microscopic magnification— but it appears to be adding the rare ability to edit photos using AI directly into its camera app.

“Replace that,” the narrator says as we look at a sullen little boy. Suddenly he was smiling. The man checking his feet is now staring directly into the camera and smiling as well. Another boy — this one who makes the kind of exaggerated, open-mouthed smile that kids make when they’re allowed a full Snickers bar — gets fitter after the ad phone user clicks on an alternative mini-smiley out of three possible options. “Beautiful,” says the narrator. “Photos are perfect with just one click.”

From the trailer, it appears that the Pixel 8’s photo editor is also using AI to remove unwanted objects and completely swap out entire sections of the image, like the gray sky that the ad user ditches for a beautiful sunset.

“It will make you wonder, could a phone be made of magic?” The narrator says, “No, it’s artificial intelligence.”

The ad doesn’t go into detail about how AI photo editing works, or to what extent it works; Kotaku I have reached out to Google for comment. Other recent smartphones, like the previous Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra and Pixel 8, pixel 7also use AI to edit or edit photos, including the S23 Ultra’s feature that saves toothless babies An abnormal row of chompers.

Historically, people have always made the representation of reality more attractive than life itself, and commissioned portraits Without their black teeth And cutting them up Albumen publications To reveal smooth skin. But the Pixel 8’s proposed feature gives me pause. It looks a lot cleaner than the S23 Ultra’s gorgeous AI shot, and the photos we take now are usually shared with about a million strangers, not just a few friends with access to our Victorian location. Albums.

Put Aloy back in The horizon is forbidden west‘s Picture mode is adjustable It feels fine, it’s not real. She can’t decide what she wants. However, I worry that the Pixel 8’s AI liberation may encourage us to think of ourselves in the same way.