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Comment by FroshKiller | Hacker News Reader

It's talking about image synthesis. Yes, a big part of that is creating a picture from other pictures, but there is also intelligent inference from sensors and other data sources besides CCDs.

You're right that the idea isn't a good fit for instances like the ones you described, but I think it certainly has applications. For one thing, you could potentially synthesize an image of a part of a city from a particular era taken from a point of view that no actual photograph was taken from. Instead, it's a synthesis of contemporary photos with inferences made from contemporary weather data, contemporary maps, potentially drawings, etc. It's an exciting idea.

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But what would the day-to-day applications of this be? I mean, if you really needed a photo of a side of a house that is now torn down, or if you needed "virtual" access to an unmapped/photographed area, then sure. But the article is talking as if this is going to replace cameras for all scenarios, specially recreational (as that's the only thing focused on in the article).

I see no exciting uses of this technology for recreational purposes. You wouldn't be able to take a photograph of the Library of Alexandria because that existed before we started gathering the data. And taking synthesized photos of your trips would make no sense, why would you even take the picture at all in that case?

My point is that it's a bad article. Technology is cool though.

It's only a bad article in the sense that it proposes synthetic photography as a good thing. The general public, however, might well embrace it one step at a time, accepting what I agree are terrible consequences. Cameras won't go away overnight. Lower-quality cameras instead become acceptable, as the results are uploaded to and enhanced in "the cloud". You eventually won't be able to capture certain images, but the predictable majority of synthetic "photos" taken by most people will work just fine, with better quality on cheaper, thinner devices. Heck, scatter some subtle product placement in the results, and the whole endeavor can be subsidized. Then we ban real cameras and end child-pornography. You're not against that, are you? Finally, we can conveniently alter any photos that might embarrass corporate or government interests! How delightfully dystopian.

It's also a bad article in the sense that it proposes it as a possible thing. Sure a few of the steps he mentions may be possible, but the assumed conclusion of "and then there will no longer be any use case for cameras" is absurd.

Of course it's not going to work miraculously as the author imagined; there are enough responses here already acknowledging that it's self-evidently absurd for replacing cameras as we know them today. My concern is that few here are imaginative enough to separate that fact from whether or not a future of synthetic photography could happen anyway.

It may be useful for historical reconstruction, but this process will never be able to account for the possibilities covered by a real camera. For example, I use cameras to take pictures at sporting events. Google isn't going to be able to predict exactly how the baseball players swing the bats. At best, they will produce a probably image which likely will deviate from reality. Ultimately, I see this tool as useful for historians but no good reason for us normal people to use it on a day to day basis.

I agree. Maybe we're taking the article too seriously though. There is no tool. It's just a really bad article. My guess is it was written by an excited very inexperienced person or someone who wanted to make clickbait.

Not enough people are photographing every flat surface they can see to get texture details, much less publishing the results or the compositions and designs of their expensive buildings.

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