Google Creator Labs explores the intersection of human expression and Pixel AI tools at PhotoVogue Festival

Google Creator Labs is a project started in 2019 through which the company seeks to empower the capabilities of content creators thanks to tools and creative freedom. In turn, the feedback received can help Google enhance the content creation capabilities of its devices.

During the latest PhotoVogue Festival 2023, members of the Google Creator Labs were invited to offer their views on the irruption of AI in today’s world, its integration into Google Pixel phones for the creative process, and what makes us human in the age of AI.

The original interview is a bit long (46 minutes), but here we have summarized and analyzed some of the best parts where they touch on the role of AI in today’s world and in Google Pixel phones, as well as the importance of the human role during the creative process.

Phones as our tools for everything

During the conversation, members of Google Creator Labs pointed out how phones have become our ‘do-it-all’ tools in practically all areas, and the artistic is no exception. In fact, it is especially important here, since the best camera is the one we carry with us, and it is almost always our phone.

These devices not only allow you to capture moments in photos and video, but even instantly edit and share them. The team affirms that, for those with an artistic soul, happiness comes from sharing their creations, so the role of smartphones for art is key.

Google Creator Labs

According to members of the Google Creator Labs, the project really encourages them to experiment, using the Pixel devices to document what made them happy. One of them gives examples such as documenting their hometown and their culture, documenting the day-to-day life of motherhood, or simply documenting something that crosses their mind and they feel deserves it.

The role of AI in today’s world

The Google Creator Labs feel that AI should be an ‘enabling’ tool rather than the source of something. Basically, they say that AI tools should help you achieve your vision, something that you may not be able to achieve easily or take a long time with other types of tools.

When considering what type of AI tools should be integrated into Google Pixel devices, the team wonders how these can help the user reach their vision more easily and help them save money along the way. In this way, they want to reduce the distance between the idea and the realization of their final vision in the creative process.

AI connecting people and breaking barriers

The artists at Google Creator Labs also point out that these types of tools are not limited to photography, but even to breaking down all kinds of barriers between people. For example, overcoming the language barrier between people from different countries, being able to have a fluid conversation with someone whose language you do not know completely.

In turn, they see AI’s ability to connect people as a complement to art, since it facilitates the creation of moments and enables storytelling that would not be possible if you could not communicate with those people.

This part of their vision on AI is reflected in the Google Pixel devices through the Live Translate tool and the Google Assistant ‘interpreter mode’.

The role of AI in photography

As artists, Google Creator Labs team feels that photographing is a ‘magic moment’ where the tool disappears to achieve what you want to do. They compare it to situations like going on a trip, arriving at an unknown airport and knowing exactly where you need to go to complete the process, without complications. It is this sensation that they want to achieve with the AI tools integrated into the Google Pixel devices.

They want photography to focus more on the moment and less on the technical part. Basically, that you can focus solely on taking a photo of something you saw, whatever it is.

This is where the power of Google’s image processing comes in, recognized for years as one of the best in the industry. Something curious about Google Pixel phones is that their camera results are on par (or above) other phones that use much larger and more modern camera sensors.

This has been true since the birth of the first Pixel phones, and it has only gotten better year after year. The company has even had the luxury of maintaining the same camera sensor for several years in multiple generations of Pixel devices, while continuing to offer better results in each new line of devices.

The human side in the age of AI

In an era where AI has taken over the world at warp speed, the Google Creator Labs team feels that human connection remains fundamental to the creative process. As mentioned above, they believe that the human should be the origin of the artistic vision, while AI is the tool that will help you accelerate the process of making it a reality.

That is, aspects such as the idea, the prompt from the photographer, the angle, the direction of the scene, the emotion impregnated in the scene… are what make the author’s vision human and authentic. On the other hand, the AI is in the middle assisting with things like reducing the time you have to spend on camera parameters, or even giving you live tips.

Another fundamental human element during the creative process is curiosity, since it is the basis of imagining things that might even seem impossible. Once the human hits that barrier, they wish to have some tool that allows them to make their idea come true instantly (such as removing or adding some element to the image).

On Google Pixel devices, this is reflected in tools like Magic Eraser or Magic Editor, or even Magic Eraser Audio; options that lead to infinite possibilities in the hands of a creative person. But you don’t have to be an artist to take advantage of them, since they are also quite useful for day-to-day situations.

In this way, the artistic process results in functions or tools whose usefulness expands to the most common situations, showing how important it can be even today.

The accessibility of AI

Google Creator Labs team also believes that AI should not feel like something inaccessible, complex or secret, in contrast to the personal techniques or methods that each artist prefers to keep to themselves. Basically, the combination between both ideas that seem contrary (something open versus something closed) marks the work authenticity.

Why? Because as they mentioned previously in the interview, they consider that the human side should be the origin of art, and AI the tool that helps us achieve it. So, each person creating and keeping their own methods or techniques can even be positive, since it will help ensure that multiple works are never the same between artists, even if they try to replicate methods in some way.

The new generation of creators

Another topic explored during the interview was the role of the new generation of creators, who will practically be ‘born’ naturalizing AI tools in their daily lives. Google Creator Labs believes that it will be interesting to see the boundaries that these new creators can break, since even their first ideas will be influenced by the presence of AI tools.

Therefore, their creativity could lead to new frontiers where the limits are unknown, and AI tools will have to adapt to this to make their vision a reality, always maintaining authenticity and human touch.

AI compared to any other tool

The Google Creator Labs team believes that AI will not take creative control during the process, being simply one more tool among many others. They give as an example the stabilization systems in cameras, a set of components that help obtain better quality images and videos, but that is not doing the creative work, just assisting on it.

In the end, the focus and vision to generate the final artistic product will always be on the human side, so they want to continue exploring everything that the power of AI can offer.

AI in the tension about time and speed during the creative process

One of the advantages of AI tools is that they allow you to focus more on the creative process and storytelling itself, rather than on the technical part. The Google Creator Labs gives as an example the time spent with traditional methods in image editing, setting up lighting and more, which could even be a little frustrating and truncate creativity.

However, there are still situations where even for AI is impossible to speed things up. For instance, if an artist wants to document the growth process of a flower, the speed of completing it will be marked by nature. So, how much AI can help also depends on the level of the artist’s idea or vision.

Basically, the main goal of the AI tools on Google Pixel devices is to eliminate the ‘friction’ of the creative process as much as possible, allowing artists to use much more time to focus on their creativity, while ensuring that much of the technical part will be adjusted by AI tools, combining both elements to reach the final vision faster, maintaining human authenticity in the work.

Finally, if you want to take a look at the full interview, you can do it from this link.