What even is a photograph these days?<\/p>\n
As tech giants pack generative AI capabilities<\/a> into our phones and their camera software, the line between what is a real image and what isn’t<\/a> continues to blur. Phones from Google and Samsung, for example, now come with features that let you drastically alter a photo by erasing people, moving people<\/a> around in the shot, and even adding new objects<\/a> to the scene.<\/p>\n Apple is getting in on the action by adding new generative features to its Photos app, though the company’s iPhone camera chief, Jon McCormack, stresses that Apple is taking a more measured approach than its competitors and isn’t \u201cdoing AI for the sake of AI.\u201d<\/p>\n At its annual Worldwide Developer Conference<\/a> on Monday, Apple showed off a handful of AI features invading the Photos app<\/a> in iOS 27, which will arrive on iPhones later this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n While the iPhone\u2019s Photos app already has the Clean Up tool, which lets you erase unwanted objects in pictures, it’ll perform even better in iOS 27 thanks to its access to Apple’s improved AI models. However, there are two new features\u2014called Extend and Spatial Reframe\u2014that let you expand the space around your photo or change the perspective of an image, all while generating fake pixels. The camera \u201cthinks\u201d about what should be there, then draws it in.<\/p>\n McCormack says there’s a giant backlog of unsolvable issues that AI is now helping to address and that these new features are very deliberate. \u201cYou don’t have to know all the details of how to do something in Photoshop or something else\u2014it gives normal people these absolute superpowers,\u201d McCormack says.<\/p>\n Apple’s new Extend feature lets you add more space to your original image. The Photos app will generate fake pixels around the subject based on what it believes should be there.<\/p>\n Courtesy of Apple<\/p>\n Apple doesn’t want to let you run wild with your images and generate all kinds of fakery, though. (At least not in the Photos app; the App Store offers plenty of tools for making photorealistic slop.) The fake pixels the Photos app generates are restricted to what’s in the background. It won’t alter the pixels of the main subject’s face. With Clean Up, for example, you cannot remove the primary subject in the image. The Extend function only works once and expands the image by 25 percent\u2014you can\u2019t save, edit the image again, and infinitely extend it with AI.<\/p>\n McCormack also says Apple will integrate Google DeepMind’s SynthID technology<\/a> later this year to add an invisible watermark indicating these images have been altered with generative AI. Any platforms where you share the photo may be able to flag it as AI-edited. (Just know that researchers have shown that digital watermarks aren’t foolproof<\/a>.)<\/p>\n \u201cA photograph is of something that actually happened,\u201d McCormack says. \u201cWe really do believe in this idea of authentic journalism to your own life\u2014when you’re capturing photographs, you’re making these memories, you’re putting moments of your life in a bottle that you can go back to. It’s really important to us that we create tools that keep the sanctity of that moment.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What even is a photograph these days? 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