Samsung’s credibility: Ultra-zoom moon images ‘fake’

Samsung equips the most affordable smartphones in its Galaxy line with the Space Zoom function. the Galaxy S23 Ultra For example, it can zoom in 100 times and has a special function dedicated to capturing the moon. Impressive, but how realistic is the result?

Unreal, a Reddit user notes in a famous post. The user takes a picture of the moon that is blurred before and during the photo shoot. Immediately after the image was taken, a very sharp moon can be seen – with all sorts of details that weren’t visible at all before.

The real moon is added artificially

The difference between real, enlarged images of the Moon and the result is so great that it is clearly not related to the sharpening of existing images. No, the moon in the photo appears to have been completely replaced by another moon, taken with a different camera.

Samsung has also been questioned in 2020 for its ‘misleading’ Space Zoom functionality, according to some users. Then Samsung said there was more to it than replacing the moon with an existing photo.

According to Samsung, the images of the moon are handled by artificial intelligence (AI). The program sees the moon being photographed and then bids According to Samsung A “Detail enhancement function by removing blur and noise”. However, Reddit user experiences suggest there’s more to it than just sharpening an image: Samsung’s system adds detail the camera never saw.

Artificial intelligence is increasingly driving

Perhaps Samsung’s feature mainly shows that artificial intelligence is fast becoming ubiquitous. Almost all new smartphones use artificial intelligence to improve photos. Then they are made sharper, better exposed or with higher contrast. But what exactly is modified is often not clear.

Therefore, phone manufacturers sometimes go too far. For example, Apple was previously accused of removing wrinkles from users who used the selfie camera. And recently, there was a comment about a hyper-realistic filter on TikTok that makes users look completely different from the real thing — also made with AI.

The user on Reddit explains that there is a scam. Samsung has not yet responded to the message. Currently, there are no guidelines for implementing AI and informing users of the scope of that AI.