As viral art apps from Stable Diffusion, to Midjourney, to DALL-E 2, stoke fears about machines stealing human creativity, it’s worth remembering we’ve been training AI to enhance our creative skills longer than you may realize. Every snapshot you’ve taken with your smartphone camera in the last decade relied on artificial intelligence – the same type of machine learning powering the generative art world today. While the stunning output of these nascent generative models may seem strange and threatening in their sophistication, the core training processes are akin to those already well-established in your pocket.
Consider that photo you snapped of your kid scoring the winning goal, or the breathtaking sunset you captured on vacation. Pretty nice, huh? Now, go and look at pictures you took 10, 15, or even 20 years ago. The farther back you go, the less impressive your shots look, not to mention the resolution of the pictures themselves. You’ll probably notice that your smartphone cameras keep getting better year after year. My current phone is a Google Pixel 6, and while it’s no longer bleeding edge, I’m still amazed at the incredible pictures I can take with the thing. What you may not realize is that behind the scenes, your phone’s camera relies on artificial intelligence in much the same way the latest viral art creation tools do. Modern photography is more computational creativity than pure mechanical capture.
Today’s cameras leverage AI in nearly every aspect of image processing. Scene detection algorithms analyze compositions to optimize settings for portraits, landscapes, or action shots. In low light, your phone takes multiple exposures and blends them with noise reduction and sharpening filters powered by machine learning. When you frame the perfect group shot, facial recognition focuses each face while AI-guided sensors balance the lighting. All this computational wizardry squeezes professional-grade performance out of tiny smartphone lenses and sensors.
It’s really kind of impressive. It’s a kind of magic, as any sufficiently advanced technology should be.
Huh, and just like that, I’ve got Queen’s “A Kind of Magic” running through my head. And yes, I know it has nothing to do with what I’m writing about.