Artificial intelligence is a big tech trend this year, propelled as a key feature in smartphones, laptops and creative endeavors, and one of the ways it’s doing so is through AI-powered photo editing.
I’ve been experimenting with Google’s AI in Google Photos, and while I don’t want to join the scare story that AI is generally very bad for humanity, what I’ve found is that: Truly ScaryWe’ll guide you through a menagerie of nightmarish beasts created by Google’s apparently mad AI.
What’s wrong?
I’ve been trying out Magic Editor, a generative AI feature within Google Photos, on my new Google Pixel 8a. It’s pretty clever, allowing you to change the sky, water, and scenery in your images, add portrait effects, remove unwanted objects, and even re-create scenes by moving objects. One of the generative AI filters available is called “Stylized,” and if you haven’t tried it yet, it really lets your AI creativity run wild. The results are often quite unusual.
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They often give photos an abstract style or make them look like classic watercolors or oil paintings. But sometimes they go completely off the rails, especially when they’re faced with some kind of creature. Google’s AI doesn’t really “understand” animals. It knows there’s something in the photo, but it’s not really interested in reality or context, and is rather interested in conjuring something that belongs in a nightmare.
Animals you definitely don’t want to pet
I don’t think I need to explain any further. It’s much easier to show you what’s going on in the dark corners of Google’s AI. Let’s start with a very ordinary photo of a sheep and a lamb. When the AI looks more closely, it transforms this photo into one of creatures that are more suited to the human world. silent hillits terrifying, elongated jaws will inevitably turn and lunge at me, causing me to flee in terror.
And that’s just the beginning: a scene showing a bunch of swans having fun on the water transitions into a hellish landscape where the swans are frozen in time on a lake of scorched moss, and other swans seem to emerge from the water in the background. The tone is very different to the original, exuding the atmosphere of a nuclear war memorial.
As the story progresses, it becomes clear that Google’s AI has a deep distrust for squirrels: In its overzealous mind, the once-cute squirrel I photographed has one short forearm, an unnaturally long one, and the darkest, most lifeless black eyes that would frighten even Quint. Jaws Think carefully about whether you want to take it on.
To prove that Google’s AI doesn’t like squirrels and that its digital eyes can only see the blackest hearts when it looks at them, Digital Trends’ mobile editor Joe Maring tried out the Magic Editor’s Stylized mode, which processed a photo of a squirrel in a similar way. Again, he gave the squirrel the most evil eyes, added bat-like ears and menacing feet — just in case you still think squirrels are cute, sassy little creatures.
AI is also picky about its eyes, which are either completely evil or completely non-existent. One of the most terrifying creations is the eyeless, many-legged giraffe. If you see this giraffe creeping around during your visit to a safari park, absolutely I would have taken a photo and prayed I’d never see it again.
They may not have eyes, but they can certainly sense your presence, and the clatter of so many hooves may be the last sound you ever hear. Joe’s camel photo has had a similar treatment, with its eyes removed, and now it has Dalmatian-like skin and a worrisome bone where the hump once was. I certainly wouldn’t want to go to the corner of a safari park where these eyeless creatures roam.
A terrible experiment
These animals are Pan’s LabyrinthGoogle’s AI sometimes takes a different but equally disturbing approach: the animals it creates are apparently the result of secret lab experiments, altering animals and merging them with each other. very It sounds scary, but it’s still wrong and extremely disconcerting: a once-normal, adorable Shetland pony has been transformed into a strange, twin-tailed dog-pony hybrid, the product of horrific experiments to create “donnies” or “pogs” for super-rich geeks who were bored with ordinary pets.
Luckily, this hawk looks rather gentle, and the trend continues in the next photo. The hawk is much more menacing in the original photo than in the Magic Editor version. The beak is softer, the feathers fluffier, and the eyes less manic. The AI decided to remove the claws entirely, lest its new creation tear you apart and devour your flesh.
When Google’s AI goes deep into the world of dreams, it sees a sheep made of burlap or some other coarse material rather than soft wool. But if that wasn’t weird enough, half of its face is… usuallyand I try not to look at what looks like a mouth full of curved fangs. I imagine the words the AI added to the fence say “Danger, linen sheep on the loose, keep out.”
Finally, we have Magic Editor’s cruellest animal experiment: an innocent turtle is transformed into something otherworldly, with fish, zebras, red pandas, lizards, and other who knows what else, coming together to form a nightmarish gestalt creature that no one should ever have to look at. Whatever is going on with Google’s generative AI and animal photos, the turtle makes it very clear that it needs expert help.
Beware of animals
In most cases, the Magic Editor’s Stylized filter edits your photos to make them unique and eye-catching, turning them into something you could never create yourself without special talent or a lot of time. But with animals, the filter seems perplexed, not knowing how to modify them, what belongs to them, what defines the creature and what doesn’t. The results are unexpected and otherworldly.
Why not try applying our generative AI to your wildlife and pet photos? If you do, we take no responsibility for any sleepless nights the results may cause.
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