The year is 2036, when dialed up to maximum space saving, the latest generation of smart phones now turn camera pictures to a textual description and later when you want to view them, re-generate them on the fly using a text2image model. Not that "saving space" really means something, the phones refuse to unlock if they don't have an internet connection and store all your data on multiple cloud servers anyway (one for each five eye country).
With the rise of AI-generated content I would actually love a camera with no post-processing by default and a watermarking system that proves the picture is authentic. I can see Apple going that way eventually.
Every dedicated camera is like this, more so if you shoot in raw.
There's also a lot of confusion around the processing here. The iPhone is mostly just taking multiple pictures and stacking them on top of each other to make up for the poor performance of the small hardware, denoising, and then applying a mask to subjects to lift shadows and adjust skin tones. This is the same kind of edit a photographer would do in Lightroom. It's not straight up AI generating content in the image.
Sadly Android phones are willing to pull cheap tricks to show better numbers or look better in some comparative youtube video so they pull this stuff.
Leica and Sony offer this as “Content Credentials” and anti-forgery digital signatures done on camera. It’s also been standard for many years for digital cameras used in criminal evidence procedures, Olympus tough series IIRC.
Me I just switched back to film. It’s about a buck a picture but I like the results I get, I’d rather have 30 photos than 300 to look through anyway.
This is a feature a lot of companies are looking in to right now. It's less about reducing processing and more about proving something is real and not AI generated. The iphone processing doesn't straight up generate things that aren't real.
It's also something I've been looking into. I've completely broken Google's implementation and I can sign any file as if it were real, more details will be public in the coming weeks.
Signatures are nice, but the contents of the image still matter. Any signs of manipulation should still be treated with suspicion, even if they're "legitimate" edits. The best way to avoid such signs is to have the bare minimum processing.
This is also my opinion. However, I still think it's worth raising the bar for plausible fakes. Minimising processing is another way to raise that bar (or at least, lower the floor). It's also not something you can do by default, because consumers demand image processing.
Well, they do their best, they don't do any userspace post-processing. They can't really help whatever the firmware in the camera and/or the camera driver are already doing.
It's not really possible to have zero processing of an image. At some point you have to interpret the sensor data and turn it in to a JPEG. The line people decide an image is "processed" is pretty subjective though. It's somewhere between the camera deciding what the white balance / exposure is, and AI replacing the sun with a moon.
There was a post on HN a few months ago showing the stages of post-processing on a photo of a Christmas tree in a room - the original photo was unrecognisable.
I would find the link, but I’m balancing my phone on my knee while trying to eat dinner and pretend I’m not playing with my phone while eating dinner…
I am wondering if the AI enhancement should be opt-in rather than the default and saving the original as well. Even if you want AI enhancement, future models are likely to be better.
I got some amazing photos through a set of eclipse viewing glasses on my Vivo x300 pro. If I'd been a bit more organized and set up a stand and taped the glasses onto the phone I think I could have taken a video of the whole thing in incredible quality. But I just held the glasses in front of the lens and it worked.
What I found though was that I had to use the pro mode (which I use for basically everything anyway, to avoid exactly the kind of issues this article is talking about).
I did try on normal photo mode and I think what was happening was that as soon as I covered one lens with the glasses it switched to another.
i would not underestimate the tomfoolery Xiaomi is doing to give the impression their phone can take a zoomed in photo of the moon. It's pretty tasteless in my opinion
I still struggle with the idea that the chinese olympics had both CGI fireworks and real firework footage mixed together.
I cant fathom how this was a "if they know it doesnt matter at all" situation.
A complete acceptance of real / fake, who cares its about stuff looking great.
I mean I can be told it but I cant understand why you would waste millions on real works just to have fake ones, why not just go all fake? If its a half way house then does no one care what is real?
IE on linkedin somany AI videos with thousands of comments and likes and I become lost on ... do most poeple just not care if its real or not? I dont think they do at all. Am I mad to care?
Its very easy to say well everyone uses filters and they are not real. And its true! But somewhere and I have no idea where, there seems tobe a line for me where I say no, thats not cricket, you cant just replace part of an image with a template of something else. I have no idea tho any thoughts appreciated.
Perhaps they needed some real fireworks for those there in person, and to be able to claim that there really was a fireworks show, but wanted to amp it up for those viewing the event virtually (most of the world).
From what I have seen, the attitude towards AI in China is entirely different. The population largely believes it's a positive technology that will help improve their lives. While in America there is a seething hatred towards AI where people believe the benefits will all go to the billionaires while they are put out of a job.
If you look at the way Chinese AI companies act compared to American ones, it's easy to see how people feel this way.
Interestingly, one of their AI filters is actually called "Super Moon":
4.14.3 Camera Image Optimization
The camera image optimization AI algorithm is mainly used in the following camera features: Super Moon, AI Camera, Document Mode, Front Portrait Mode with Background Blurring, and Beautify.
In the future, it might be extremely hard to find a camera which records exactly what is in front of it :D
The year is 2036, when dialed up to maximum space saving, the latest generation of smart phones now turn camera pictures to a textual description and later when you want to view them, re-generate them on the fly using a text2image model. Not that "saving space" really means something, the phones refuse to unlock if they don't have an internet connection and store all your data on multiple cloud servers anyway (one for each five eye country).
It's already 14 eyes, and it'll be 195 eyes by then
194. That one country will not be invited.
It's one Monarch, but many eyes. All information flows to the Crown.
With the rise of AI-generated content I would actually love a camera with no post-processing by default and a watermarking system that proves the picture is authentic. I can see Apple going that way eventually.
Every dedicated camera is like this, more so if you shoot in raw.
There's also a lot of confusion around the processing here. The iPhone is mostly just taking multiple pictures and stacking them on top of each other to make up for the poor performance of the small hardware, denoising, and then applying a mask to subjects to lift shadows and adjust skin tones. This is the same kind of edit a photographer would do in Lightroom. It's not straight up AI generating content in the image.
Sadly Android phones are willing to pull cheap tricks to show better numbers or look better in some comparative youtube video so they pull this stuff.
On Android, you can use OpenCamera. Optionally save in RAW and process in desktop RAW software.
Alternatively, buy a mirrorless or DSLR with some decent lenses.
Leica and Sony offer this as “Content Credentials” and anti-forgery digital signatures done on camera. It’s also been standard for many years for digital cameras used in criminal evidence procedures, Olympus tough series IIRC.
Me I just switched back to film. It’s about a buck a picture but I like the results I get, I’d rather have 30 photos than 300 to look through anyway.
If it's watermarked then it's by definition inauthentic. Watermarking is in-band signal manipulation.
Apple is apparently working on the latter, although it'll be opt-in and it's unclear whether it will also reduce the processing (I hope it does!): https://www.macrumors.com/2026/08/10/ios-27-apple-reference-...
This is a feature a lot of companies are looking in to right now. It's less about reducing processing and more about proving something is real and not AI generated. The iphone processing doesn't straight up generate things that aren't real.
It's also something I've been looking into. I've completely broken Google's implementation and I can sign any file as if it were real, more details will be public in the coming weeks.
Signatures are nice, but the contents of the image still matter. Any signs of manipulation should still be treated with suspicion, even if they're "legitimate" edits. The best way to avoid such signs is to have the bare minimum processing.
The technology is fundamentally flawed. It's essentially DRM that relies on making the signing key hard to access.
This is also my opinion. However, I still think it's worth raising the bar for plausible fakes. Minimising processing is another way to raise that bar (or at least, lower the floor). It's also not something you can do by default, because consumers demand image processing.
How does that watermark feature work if you can just point the camera at an AI-generated image?
One of the proposals I saw was using the lidar to capture a depth map. You could also embed the GPS location.
Eh, there are plenty of third party camera apps which do that (See: Halide and their Prozess Zero). I doubt a built-in one will go that way.
Well, they do their best, they don't do any userspace post-processing. They can't really help whatever the firmware in the camera and/or the camera driver are already doing.
It's not really possible to have zero processing of an image. At some point you have to interpret the sensor data and turn it in to a JPEG. The line people decide an image is "processed" is pretty subjective though. It's somewhere between the camera deciding what the white balance / exposure is, and AI replacing the sun with a moon.
raw images exist
A lot of smartphones support raw format.
It's fascinating to see how much post-processing gets done.
There was a post on HN a few months ago showing the stages of post-processing on a photo of a Christmas tree in a room - the original photo was unrecognisable.
I would find the link, but I’m balancing my phone on my knee while trying to eat dinner and pretend I’m not playing with my phone while eating dinner…
It's this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46415225
Often the "RAW" output is still DSP'd, just less (e.g. only debayering + noise reduction).
I am wondering if the AI enhancement should be opt-in rather than the default and saving the original as well. Even if you want AI enhancement, future models are likely to be better.
I got some amazing photos through a set of eclipse viewing glasses on my Vivo x300 pro. If I'd been a bit more organized and set up a stand and taped the glasses onto the phone I think I could have taken a video of the whole thing in incredible quality. But I just held the glasses in front of the lens and it worked.
What I found though was that I had to use the pro mode (which I use for basically everything anyway, to avoid exactly the kind of issues this article is talking about).
I did try on normal photo mode and I think what was happening was that as soon as I covered one lens with the glasses it switched to another.
I wonder if it gets the moon the right way up in the southern hemisphere
i would not underestimate the tomfoolery Xiaomi is doing to give the impression their phone can take a zoomed in photo of the moon. It's pretty tasteless in my opinion
I still struggle with the idea that the chinese olympics had both CGI fireworks and real firework footage mixed together.
I cant fathom how this was a "if they know it doesnt matter at all" situation.
A complete acceptance of real / fake, who cares its about stuff looking great.
I mean I can be told it but I cant understand why you would waste millions on real works just to have fake ones, why not just go all fake? If its a half way house then does no one care what is real?
IE on linkedin somany AI videos with thousands of comments and likes and I become lost on ... do most poeple just not care if its real or not? I dont think they do at all. Am I mad to care?
Its very easy to say well everyone uses filters and they are not real. And its true! But somewhere and I have no idea where, there seems tobe a line for me where I say no, thats not cricket, you cant just replace part of an image with a template of something else. I have no idea tho any thoughts appreciated.
> why not just go all fake?
Perhaps they needed some real fireworks for those there in person, and to be able to claim that there really was a fireworks show, but wanted to amp it up for those viewing the event virtually (most of the world).
Does it come from a cultural mindset, or are people from China just as confused?
From what I have seen, the attitude towards AI in China is entirely different. The population largely believes it's a positive technology that will help improve their lives. While in America there is a seething hatred towards AI where people believe the benefits will all go to the billionaires while they are put out of a job.
If you look at the way Chinese AI companies act compared to American ones, it's easy to see how people feel this way.
Interestingly, one of their AI filters is actually called "Super Moon":
4.14.3 Camera Image Optimization
The camera image optimization AI algorithm is mainly used in the following camera features: Super Moon, AI Camera, Document Mode, Front Portrait Mode with Background Blurring, and Beautify.
https://trust.mi.com/docs/miui-privacy-white-paper-global/4/...
the title should be "lies, damn lies, and photo enhancements"
It remains incredibly funny that they never turned off this "fake moon" feature after being caught the first time
I think you're confusing them with samsung who was caught in 2023 for this
https://www.theverge.com/2023/3/13/23637401/samsung-fake-moo...
You are right, but I think my point stands - anyone getting caught for this ought to make the others think twice
Swiftcoder can't possibly be expected to keep track of the difference between two Asian companies. They all look the same!
they will probably just add a condition into code to temporary disable it during eclipses
Because nobody cares. We live in a post-truth era.
Living in a post-factual world.