If you've ever been to Italy's leaning Tower of Pisa, or similar tourist attractions, you've probably attempted to take that quintessential holding-up-the-tower photo. It's a tricky shot to nail because you have to position yourself at just the right angle and just the right distance. And it could mean several takes before you capture just the perfect image.
Thanks to Google, you may never have to endure this sort of (first-world) struggle again. You probably only need a single photo because the tech giant has an AI-based tool known as the Magic Editor that is now available in Google Photos on the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro.
The Magic Editor uses generative AI along with AI processing techniques to help people make complex photo edits easily without the need of professional skills. It goes beyond lightening and brightening photos, although that's part of it. In the case of the Tower of Pisa photo, you could reposition yourself, enlarge the tower, remove strangers from the background and even fill backgrounds.
But why stop there? Google says you can even change the color of the sky, if you please.
"If you're trying to get the perfect photo from your time at a popular waterfall, you could remove the bag strap you forgot to take off," said CEO Sundar Pichai, who first unveiled the feature in Google's developer conference in May.
Pichai explained that you could also make the sky brighter and less cloudy, "and for a finishing touch, relocate and change the scale of your subject so they're perfectly lined up under the waterfall."
According to Pichai, 1.7 billion images are edited on Google Photos every single month. Launching an AI-powered editor that allows people to quickly alter any photo makes logical sense as a next step and a clever marketing campaign.
"As a consumer, I am really excited about these new tools -- there are so many times when I wish I could edit my images a little bit, especially when I take pictures of my little kids and they have a hard time standing still and looking at the camera," said Anton Korinek, professor of economics at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business and a researcher at the Oxford Center for the Governance of AI.
The Magic Editor should undoubtedly open up exciting photo editing possibilities, but it also raises questions about the authenticity and credibility of online images. Google's new Pixel phones underscore the promise and the peril of AI.
On one hand, it offers new ways for people to express themselves creatively and conveniently through digital media. On the other hand, it comes with social implications such as normalizing present idealized versions of themselves online. More ominously, it can pose serious threats to people's (already fragile) trust of online content.
What if someone uses the Magic Editor to manipulate their professional photos in a way that deceives others? What if someone uses it to create fake news or propaganda? What if someone uses it to erase or distort their memories or history? How can we trust what we see on social media when AI can easily alter it?
It's no secret that photographs can already be edited by downloading apps such as Photoshop or FaceTune. That's been done for a long time and has come with its own set of implications.
But the Magic Editor simplifies a task that once took hours on, say, Photoshop and turns it into something supremely simple -- literally putting it at your fingertips. For instance, to resize a person, you just need to pinch, or if you want to reposition, you just tap and drag.
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