Family Photos with Google By Using AI’s Magic

25/8/2024,

Add Yourself to Other People’s Family Photos with Google By Using AI’s Magic, this functionality might require some work.

One of the more amusing features of Google‘s recently released Pixel 9 smartphones, which is driven by AI, is perhaps the ability to digitally photobomb other people’s family photos in the vein of Michael Scott.

I tested Google’s ‘Add Me’ tool which uses AI to help you gatecrash group photos – with hilarious results https://t.co/1jRY36sZWL pic.twitter.com/oCAi7DOsTf

— Daily Mail Online (@MailOnline) August 21, 2024

The goal of the Pixel’s new “Add Me” feature, as one of the Daily Mail’s reporters pointed out in her review, is to enable anyone taking group photos to include themselves in the image so they don’t feel excluded.

The process is quite simple: after taking a picture of a person or group of people, another person snaps a picture of them in the same location but slightly off to the side. After then, the two images are combined to create what is supposedly meant to appear as though the two photographers were actually standing next to one other.

The program overlays the first shot in the second one’s frame, as demo videos demonstrate, allowing the photographer to guide where to stand to create a realistic look. However, as the Mail’s reviewer found, this may easily result in the image appearing to be a hastily done Photoshop work.

Mail reporter Shivali Best traveled to Kensington Palace in London to test out the function with some tourists, and she quickly located an American couple who was prepared to assist.

Testing Tech Young 😅 Here’s a look at @madebygoogle‘s Add Me feature. He still thinks this is the iPhone. pic.twitter.com/I8bDv802wC

— Sean Fenner Jr (@SeanFennerJr) August 23, 2024

The photographs were taken outside, though, so it was comically evident that the reporter and her subjects were not standing in the same spot at the same time due to the otherwise minute variations in outdoor light that occurred in the minutes between the two shots.

Although the reporter’s attempt to use “Add Me” as intended proved unsuccessful, others have discovered a more ridiculous use for it: shooting many pictures of oneself to create the illusion that there are several copies of you standing next to each other.

Writing on TechRadar, Lance Ulanoff tried to see if the capability “could be employed for some less utilitarian activities, like copying myself.”

He discovered that the Gemini AI-enabled feature works far better for shooting stunning images of doppelgängers than it does for trying to capture simple group shots. Looking through X’s prior Twitter blather about “Add Me” reveals he’s not alone.

Although mixed reviews are probably irrelevant to fans of Android and artificial intelligence (AI), it’s encouraging to see some real results that temper the hype surrounding the new smartphone. Wired calls the Pixel’s “next-level chatbot” and its other powerful AI features “awesome.”