3 ms·

I think Google is generally going down a self-destructive path with their AI approach, which works with their generally self-destructive approach to user interf

I think Google is generally going down a self-destructive path with their AI approach, which works with their generally self-destructive approach to user interfaces. I see ads for Google phones where they brag about how rather than taking actual pictures, they have their AI hallucinate better pictures, and I wonder who exactly these ads are supposed to appeal to? Already Google Maps is something of a nightmare to use -- searching for something will often refocus the current view in wild and useless ways. This is doubly true when you're trying to do a multi-part search (e.g. "I'm going to be at this store, I wonder if there's a good Thai restaurant nearby" will zoom out and show you Thai restaurants thirty miles away, and you've lost the pin from the first search). And the "explore" option just seems kind of useless and intrusive -- it is literally never what I am using Google Maps for. And the near-extortive labelling -- "in order to get your restaurant labelled as 'LGBTQ friendly' you have to create a Google account and claim the restaurant" is mind-boggling. Adding AI to Google Maps could conceivably help with keyword labelling (like when a search for "pharmacy" fails to show up a given pharmacy because it's marked as a "drug store" or something). Maybe if I search for a good "salad place" it'll find restaurants that serve good salads but don't have them in the restaurant name. But I'm terrified of the kind of generalized hallucinations that it will provide. Might be interesting to do a "vibe"-based search from time to time ("find me a clean, well-lit, quiet bar" or a "bar with a pool table") but I suspect this will get old after a couple of false positives.

foogazi 3y ago
> I see ads for Google phones where they brag about how rather than taking actual pictures, they have their AI hallucinate better pictures, and I wonder who exactly these ads are supposed to appeal to? Everyone that takes pictures where: someone closed their eyes, wasn’t looking, something annoying in the background, unflattering pose, etc Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones
- andrewla 3y ago
  > Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones But on that note, having a flawed high fidelity record is no worse for remembering the good times. The hallucinations are mostly harmless, until the AI changes your eye color or adds extra teeth or all of a sudden there's an elephant in the background, even though you told the AI that you specifically wanted a picture without an elephant. Or, more whimsically, your friend who memorably never smiles in pictures is smiling in all of the pictures with your new phone.
  - JumpCrisscross 3y ago
    > having a flawed high fidelity record is no worse for remembering the good times This doesn't describe most avid photo takers, who are presumably the people who will choose a smartphone based on its camera features.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- JohnFen 3y ago
  > Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones Maybe so, but personally if I'm taking a picture, I want that picture to be of real things. I don't want it to be altered or to have artificial things added. That just adds an additional layer of separation between my and reality. If I want a picture to be artificially enhanced, I'd be using photoshop or similar. But I understand that's just me. One of the things I worry about with how generative AI seems to be going is that it's being used for things that further blur what is real from what is not, and we already have far too much of that as it is.
  - Xeyz0r 3y ago
    That's true. I remember when I switched from the iPhone 6s to the iPhone 13 and tried taking a selfie in low light. I was so dissatisfied because the image became brighter than it appeared on the camera preview during shooting. Good shots with minimal phone editing now only happen in good lighting. But if a photo is taken in low light, the face gets heavily smoothed to remove noise in the photo, but in my opinion, it only makes everything look worse.
  - whakim 3y ago
    But what is a "real thing"? I would argue that photography is a medium for understanding a deeper underlying reality - just like our own brains and sense-perceptions are, but with different mechanics. The angle with which you take a photo, or the optics which the camera uses, or the post-processing that camera software applies are just as much a mechanism for interpreting the "thing itself" as the vagaries of our own sense-perceptions when we "see" something. In addition, these multiple representations (our senses and the images we create) interact - for example, we sometimes think a photo is "bad" because it doesn't match the representation in our brain, and sometimes we find that "hyperreal" photos (to use Baudrillard's term) override our perceptions. So I think it's silly to worry that Generative AI might make photos less representative of "objective" reality. Perhaps it's even a good thing if more folks accept the inherent subjectivity of any media.

foogazi 3y ago

> I see ads for Google phones where they brag about how rather than taking actual pictures, they have their AI hallucinate better pictures, and I wonder who exactly these ads are supposed to appeal to? Everyone that takes pictures where: someone closed their eyes, wasn’t looking, something annoying in the background, unflattering pose, etc Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones

andrewla 3y ago
> Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones But on that note, having a flawed high fidelity record is no worse for remembering the good times. The hallucinations are mostly harmless, until the AI changes your eye color or adds extra teeth or all of a sudden there's an elephant in the background, even though you told the AI that you specifically wanted a picture without an elephant. Or, more whimsically, your friend who memorably never smiles in pictures is smiling in all of the pictures with your new phone.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago
  > having a flawed high fidelity record is no worse for remembering the good times This doesn't describe most avid photo takers, who are presumably the people who will choose a smartphone based on its camera features.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
JohnFen 3y ago
> Most peoples pictures are not a statement of record - we just want to remember the good times with loved ones Maybe so, but personally if I'm taking a picture, I want that picture to be of real things. I don't want it to be altered or to have artificial things added. That just adds an additional layer of separation between my and reality. If I want a picture to be artificially enhanced, I'd be using photoshop or similar. But I understand that's just me. One of the things I worry about with how generative AI seems to be going is that it's being used for things that further blur what is real from what is not, and we already have far too much of that as it is.
- Xeyz0r 3y ago
  That's true. I remember when I switched from the iPhone 6s to the iPhone 13 and tried taking a selfie in low light. I was so dissatisfied because the image became brighter than it appeared on the camera preview during shooting. Good shots with minimal phone editing now only happen in good lighting. But if a photo is taken in low light, the face gets heavily smoothed to remove noise in the photo, but in my opinion, it only makes everything look worse.
- whakim 3y ago
  But what is a "real thing"? I would argue that photography is a medium for understanding a deeper underlying reality - just like our own brains and sense-perceptions are, but with different mechanics. The angle with which you take a photo, or the optics which the camera uses, or the post-processing that camera software applies are just as much a mechanism for interpreting the "thing itself" as the vagaries of our own sense-perceptions when we "see" something. In addition, these multiple representations (our senses and the images we create) interact - for example, we sometimes think a photo is "bad" because it doesn't match the representation in our brain, and sometimes we find that "hyperreal" photos (to use Baudrillard's term) override our perceptions. So I think it's silly to worry that Generative AI might make photos less representative of "objective" reality. Perhaps it's even a good thing if more folks accept the inherent subjectivity of any media.