Apple’s Textual content-to-Picture AI ‘Picture Playground’ Targets Enjoyable, not Photorealism
Apple Intelligence is settling right into a semi-regular replace schedule. Inside iOS 18.2, iPadOS 18.2, and macOS Sequoia 15.2, Apple is bringing a slate of enhancements to its AI expertise and software program platform, together with the generative text-to-image software, Picture Playground. First unveiled at WWDC in June, Apple Intelligence hit iPhone, iPad, and Mac in late October with iOS/iPadOS 18.1 and macOS 15.1. The primary iteration launched an improved Siri, writing instruments, and an AI-powered photograph modifying software, Clear Up. With the most recent software program launch, out there now, Apple Intelligence provides a couple of extra options Apple first confirmed off in June, together with the power to generate photos with Picture Playground, instruments to create custom-made emojis (“Genmoji,” in Apple’s terminology), and Picture Wand, a method so as to add photos, illustrations, and sketches to notes. As promised, ChatGPT can also be now built-in into Siri and Apple’s AI-powered Writing Instruments. Customers can select whether or not to allow ChatGPT and an OpenAI account shouldn’t be required to make use of the ChatGPT instruments inside Apple Intelligence. Trying nearer at Picture Playground, it’s a vastly totally different method to text-to-image generative AI than most firms are taking. Whereas main AI tech firms search photorealism of their AI picture turbines, and Apple’s smartphone opponents like Google and Samsung equally wish to develop AI that may mimic an actual photograph, Apple is as a substitute centered on cartoony, unrealistic AI photos.
As PetaPixel wrote in September, Apple’s common method to synthetic intelligence is a welcome change of tempo for photographers. The corporate prioritizes actuality and authenticity with its photograph options. The place pictures and AI meet is a regarding intersection for photographers. Some firms are attempting to develop expertise that erases the barrier between synthetic and actual, serving to folks use AI to craft photos that appear to be photographs, lowering the necessity for pictures in any respect. The outcomes could be harmful and dangerous. Apple is adamant {that a} photograph is “one thing that basically, truly occurred.” The corporate’s newest Apple Intelligence options bear this out. Picture Playground shouldn’t be an alternative to pictures — not even shut. It’s only a goofy technique to make cartoony photos. Probably the most obvious place Apple Intelligence will get concerned with pictures is Clear Up, a extremely restricted software constructed completely to take away distractions from photographs. Whereas this requires AI to generate new pixels, it’s removed from changing actual pictures.
Up to now, Apple Intelligence has its sights set squarely on productiveness with issues like Writing Instruments and a extra clever Siri and goofy enjoyable with instruments like Picture Playground and Genmoji. Within the trend-chasing world of AI, Apple is taking a special, slower, and extra cautious method with Apple Intelligence, which additionally applies to text-to-image expertise. Picture credit: Apple
