[Winder]

It?s Official: A.I.s are Now Re-Writing History

[bossa]

More and more people seem to be living in a self contained human construct where the natural world, ethics and the idea of truth are less important than their ego. The fact that the "photograph" in question is a pastiche matters to the author is a relief but that the importance of integrity has bypassed the programmers ethical code so easily is disturbing. Eventually someone will be found guilty of murder based on images created in this way.

[Kerrowdown]

Google automatically altering pictures

Thanks for posting and interesting read for sure, just wondering now is this a development that we should become concerned about for the future.

[wombat2go]

I think that is disgusting, the stuff of sickos.
Arthur C Clarke gave us a warning with his character Hal 9000

[stevebrot]

I liked the Cory Doctorow's comment about white balance. Where I live, most waterfalls are lit primarily by the sky and the available light is decidedly cool. Despite that, I see all these wonderful photos with joyful splashing water having all the warmth of the "golden hour" that never happened.

I am also guilty of course.


Steve

[RonakG]

It?s Official: A.I.s are Now Re-Writing History

The title is too sensational. Google is altering pictures if you let it do it via the option available. Plus you still have original untouched pictures available to you. Altered picture is not shared with anyone till you do it yourself.

I myself is actually very fascinated by all these stuff Google can do. They are just automating lot of stuff that people do in Photoshop.

[tvdtvdtvd]

The title is too sensational. Google is altering pictures if you let it do it via the option available. Plus you still have original untouched pictures available to you. Altered picture is not shared with anyone till you do it yourself.

I myself is actually very fascinated by all these stuff Google can do. They are just automating lot of stuff that people do in Photoshop.

Agreed. Nothing different than any other PP. The fact that it's blatantly called AutoAwesome should create no surprises when it "automatically"
makes this alteration. Someone else might be upset that the algorithm didn't 'automatically' trim out the noisy background and substitute
something more scenic and sublime. You press "Auto", you takes your chances.

And let's not forget that before these new-fangled camera-ma-doo-hickies were around, portrait painters were altering reality to no end.
And I suspect the writers of history are biased, occasionally, as well......

[rburgoss]

That is spooky, sick and lacks common sense.

First, it can put you in trouble, creating "images" that put you in places, positions or in company of people you don't know or not supposed to be with, in places you've never been or in situations that may create doubt about your whereabouts certain day.

Second: No A.I. device today has the common sense as to think before hand all the consequences that it may cause from a single "created" image, by using just simple criteria.

This is a NO NO situation. Never let a machine take decisions for you, but to be more specific, the alogarith is not to blame on whatever controversy it may create. It is the alogarith creator the one to blame for, and ultimately, responsible for all the incidental and consequential damage that one "created" image may produce.

[reeftool]

They started doing this back in December. I'm surprised people are just discovering it now. When Google added their Auto Awesome enhancements to G+, they turned it on by default without telling anyone. You have to manually turn it off. Even after doing that, the effects remain in the altered photos so the photos must be deleted from your album. This is one of the reasons G+ is failing and there are rumors that it may be closed down by the end of the year.

[Nass]

They started doing this back in December. I'm surprised people are just discovering it now. When Google added their Auto Awesome enhancements to G+, they turned it on by default without telling anyone. You have to manually turn it off. Even after doing that, the effects remain in the altered photos so the photos must be deleted from your album. This is one of the reasons G+ is failing and there are rumors that it may be closed down by the end of the year.

Are you sure about this? I had an voluntary opt-in option to autoawesome when it was first introduced, mine wasn't done by default

[reeftool]

Are you sure about this? I had an voluntary opt-in option to autoawesome when it was first introduced, mine wasn't done by default

I'm not sure when Auto Awesome went into effect but my bad experience happened in December after I photographed a Christmas party. As I normally do, I upload my photos to G+ (I started when it was Picasa) and posted links on Facebook and sent a few emails to let the people know where to find the photos. About 10 shots had been altered with things like fake snow and some fake decorations that looked like something a 5 year old did. I immediately began digging into what happened and discovered Auto Awesome which was turned on. I never knew about it. I turned it off but the altered photos remained. I had to delete them and upload again under a different file name.

If there was a voluntary opt in, I wasn't notified. I don't think a lot of people were. Google + has been a pretty good place to upload photos. There is a lot of free space and I currently have several thousand photos going back several years when I began uploading my daughters college sports team photos. The Auto Awesome got me considering a new place to upload to. I do have a Flickr account but I don't use it much. There have been rumors going around in the tech sites like Ars Technica and others that Google +'s days are numbered as it has been a money drain although they will probably maintain some sort of photo sharing site.

[Synapz]

True story. It freaked me out when I saw an example of it on my Google sync.