AI is awesome. And I can afford to say that: I was an early adopter with Cleverbot, with tons of hours on record with it, I was a tester for ChatGPT and now I got pretty early access to Bard too, and I love it, because collaborating with a bot in making a custom watch face is just as fun as it sounds.
are. The line has always been special and very AI-centric, but now it finally feels like Google actually embraced that and used it as a selling point for its latest phones.
Plus, with a display like this and all-round strong performance, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro finally feel like proper flagships, as we’ve stated in our reviews.
But you know, you can’t just have a top-notch device nowadays without causing a bit of drama on the side and in these past few days I’ve witnessed people become absolutely enraged over the
Pro’s AI-powered photo features.
And, quite honestly, I don’t get why, because this has been the world as we know it for about a decade now. So this is your wake-up-call, I guess.
Just Google flexing the Pixel 8 Pro’s features. Do you see why people are scared?
do that the other phones can’t? Obviously, it has an impressive 50MP camera sensor, but it’s what the
line can do with it that truly matters. So, here’s a list of the tricks:
And, by the way, these are just the photography related ones, you also have Audio Magic Eraser — no explanation necessary — and then Zoom Enhance and Video Boost, which are set to release later this year and will probably cause another ruckus when they do.
But despite how awesome all of these — some brand new, others being available on past Pixels too — sound, instead of celebrating Google’s AI-driven achievement, people are becoming afraid of AI, thinking that what these features allow you to do is simply unnatural.
And then along comes this funny little candybar phone that seemingly deletes concepts such as subject framing.
Is something unwanted in your photo, like electrical lines? Where before you’d have to consider a creative way to make those a part of your overall composition, now you can just remove them from the shot with a few taps on the screen.
Does there happen to be a subject, which would compliment your shot very well if it were just ever so slightly to the left? Well, select it, hold it for a bit and then just… Move it around, seemingly shaping reality. And then, if you don’t like it: you can just delete it.
Well, what’s the point of the pricey gear and the expensive degree? Is that time, effort and cash just considered lost?
Photography’s NOT dead! It’s… complicated!
If you think that your phone’s Pro mode is complicated, try an actual camera. Or, don’t and get a Pixel.| Image credit — Phone Arena
I get it. I really do. But listen: photography isn’t dead.
You just need to get with the times. Because, like it or not, people have been retouching their photos in these exact ways for about a decade now. It just took them more time and effort in the past. And if you didn’t know that, then you should work on your online presence.
Now, I’m in the cringetastic position of knowing actual influencers and here’s what I can tell you: they’re all terminally online and to them, picking the right filter is a business-altering decision of utmost importance, because they are the brand.
Oh, and that innocent-looking and at a glance simple, casual photo that they took while having their morning coffee probably has metadata leftovers of at least a dozen separate apps. And do you want to know the best part?
This isn’t anything new and TikTok, Zuck or Elon Musk aren’t to blame: this has been the case ever since social media established itself as the new norm. All of us want to look our best there, and some just want it way more passionately than others.
And while this would make it easy to say something like “the Pixel 8 Pro is an influencer-focused phone”, I won’t do that, because it’s not only great for them. It’s great for me too!
And me? I fancy myself an artist!
Who said that the Pixel 8 Pro can’t make art too?
Though the Visor style camera array is quite artsy for the modern phone industry.| Image credit — Phone Arena
Realistically, what Google did was take away the need for me to pay for expensive PC apps like Photoshop and then learn to use them. The Big G also dismissed the need of having about 19 different photo editing apps on your phone — all of which, by the way, just literally do one thing, but really, really well, so you need all of them in order to produce a top shot.
Yeah, this is what people do. And I think that it’s high time that we stop fearing AI, because despite its rapid development, it has one glaring flaw that only humans can overcome: intent. And your result’s intent is what makes you an artist, influencer or meme-poster.
Intent, combined with the viewer’s perception is what creates meaning. That’s why photo framing, subject lighting, the photographer’s own reactions: all of that will always still matter when talking about art. But how many social media posts can we call art?
Sure, there’s a ton of craft going into those, but ultimately in most cases, they are products, not aspirations. And if Google can enable you to make better products for cheaper and while on the go, then how is that a bad thing?
And just for the record: making a good product is just as difficult as creating art, so no quarrel there.
Furthermore, how does that stop you from being empowered by the very same feature set, to create something breathtaking, meaningful and — per your own moral and understanding — fair, as a piece of art?
I mean, cameras are cameras, and they shoot all sorts of things. They’ve taken pin-ups and worse things, then they’ve captured nature in ways that are impossible to re-experience in real life; they’ve allowed geniuses to create films like “Whiplash” and “12 Angry Men”, but… “The Avengers” was also shot on a camera.
So, what, we hate cameras now?
Some of these are products, others are art, but all are made real through the same type of technology and given meaning by you, the viewer. So it’s a bit hypocritical of us to be calling Google the bad guy here for making the Pixel 8 Pro awesome, right?
Pixel > DSLR; Don’t try to change my mind
Plus, they don’t really make DSLR cameras in blue. | Image credit — Phone Arena
Let me tell you something that always gets people on the table gasping: ever since I got my Pixel 6a, I sold my DSLR.
For context: I’m a photography graduate with a successful freelance career in design and production. And I’m not afraid of AI: I’m looking forward to it. Because 99.9% of my clients can’t tell the difference between a photo produced by my Lumix and my Pixel 6a, so what does it matter if I throw in AI in the mix?
But that’s the case only because I’ve learned how to work with these amazing features that Google has equipped me with. There’s a ton of effort that goes into making a final shot and at one point I just realized that it doesn’t matter if I spend that time on my phone or on my camera and then in Photoshop and Lightroom, and ugh.
The time costs weren’t the same either, so if that’s the case, then why would I not use the all-in-one solution that my Pixel is instead?
I mean, that would also allow me to have more time to work — as I see fit and feel fair — on my novel and proper artistic desires, because those aren’t products and they can’t really be rushed, AI or not, at least from my perspective and for the time being.
If there’s anyone that should be worried about AI rising up and taking over our jobs, it’s me. All of the things I do to earn a living are things that AI is getting better at: writing, image creating, editing, design and even coding!
But that doesn’t make me fearful of technology. It gets me pumped to have more time on my hands. Because ChatGPT and Bard can eat their hearts out, but they’re not likely to produce final touches like I can, or like the designers and photographers of the world that truly matter (not to put myself next to them or anything, but you get the point).
And if that happens some day: fine, I’ll come back and edit this article to say so (if AI hasn’t gotten me fired by then). But for the time being, I’m not skeptical or fearful, I’m excited about all the things that Google is cooking up with AI.
The Pixel 8 Pro is the best Pixel to date and I’d totally sell my DSLR again to get one. Better yet: I can’t wait to see what Google does in the future with AI. Because if the company keeps this pace up, I might just stop paying Adobe entirely and just become forever subscribed to the Google Pixel ideology instead.
