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In the near-term, your camera snaps a low-res image that's sufficient to identify Banksy's work and generate a gigapixel zoom that will allow you to appreciate

In the near-term, your camera snaps a low-res image that's sufficient to identify Banksy's work and generate a gigapixel zoom that will allow you to appreciate it as if you were standing in a nearby window. A discerning eye might notice the details aren't quite a 1-to-1 match, but it's close enough for the ignorant masses to miss. You complain on HN about the inaccuracy, finding some agreement, but within hours, future images of the same tag are spot-on. The next time you view the image on your phone, those inaccuracies have been corrected. If you hadn't downloaded it off your camera to show here, there would be no evidence anything was off. Five years later, you snap another photo of Banksy's latest, with an even lower-res camera. Two possible outcomes: 1. You've violated Banksy's copyright, whether he wanted that copyright or not, and the offending image is not present in your photo. You may or may not receive an automated warning. 2. You've recorded a crime, the authorities are notified immediately as your photo processes, and the image is again not present in your photo so as not to encourage the proliferation of graffiti. The endgame leaves you with no camera, no one cares about Banksy who's in jail by now (with your help!), and why are you so concerned about violating copyright and encouraging crime, anyway? Why should technology enable you to do any such thing?

imgabe 10y ago
I guess I've confused the issue with the Banksy example. Forget about that. Say I want to take a picture of a robin on the first day of spring. I take a picture of my deck with the robin sitting on it. This software knows I'm in my house looking out at my deck. It knows what my deck looks like. It doesn't know that there's a robin there at that moment, what exact location it's in, how big it is, etc, so it's not going to be able to reproduce that. Maybe I could carefully explain to the software, "there's a male robin in this exact location and pose on the deck" and it could generate one, but why would I want to do that instead of just having a regular camera? What does this do that I can't do with a camera? It sounds like a way more complicated, processing-intensive method to achieve an inferior result. It's a solution in search of a problem. It's not like decent cameras are prohibitively expensive, seeing as we've managed to include one in basically every phone now. Most of the pictures I'd want to take are of something unique. Software may be able to figure where I'm standing, what permanent features are nearby, what the weather is like, what the people I'm with look like, but it's not going to know the transient features, like there's a lady with a weird looking hat in the background that I wanted to capture. So, what's the point?
- QuantumGravy 10y ago
  Nah, I got carried away, sorry. You're right, what the author here is suggesting is not something you would want. He's imagining a magical omniscient fantasy technology, the closest approximation of which would leave you disappointed and robbed of agency as a photographer. I propose, instead, you consider the elements he stitched together to reach his delusion and whether or not they could still lead to a very similar, regrettable future.

imgabe 10y ago

I guess I've confused the issue with the Banksy example. Forget about that. Say I want to take a picture of a robin on the first day of spring. I take a picture of my deck with the robin sitting on it. This software knows I'm in my house looking out at my deck. It knows what my deck looks like. It doesn't know that there's a robin there at that moment, what exact location it's in, how big it is, etc, so it's not going to be able to reproduce that. Maybe I could carefully explain to the software, "there's a male robin in this exact location and pose on the deck" and it could generate one, but why would I want to do that instead of just having a regular camera? What does this do that I can't do with a camera? It sounds like a way more complicated, processing-intensive method to achieve an inferior result. It's a solution in search of a problem. It's not like decent cameras are prohibitively expensive, seeing as we've managed to include one in basically every phone now. Most of the pictures I'd want to take are of something unique. Software may be able to figure where I'm standing, what permanent features are nearby, what the weather is like, what the people I'm with look like, but it's not going to know the transient features, like there's a lady with a weird looking hat in the background that I wanted to capture. So, what's the point?

QuantumGravy 10y ago
Nah, I got carried away, sorry. You're right, what the author here is suggesting is not something you would want. He's imagining a magical omniscient fantasy technology, the closest approximation of which would leave you disappointed and robbed of agency as a photographer. I propose, instead, you consider the elements he stitched together to reach his delusion and whether or not they could still lead to a very similar, regrettable future.