How to use Apple's AI image tool

Image Playground is super-fun to play with.

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Last night I made a bunch of AI images of myself and my family using the new Image Playground app, which is currently in beta testing in iOS 18.2.

The overwhelming reaction from my wife, kids and mom was horror and revulsion!

“Horrible,” “awful” and “terrible” were the reactions on the family text after I shared them.

Most of the images I generated (using tagged pictures from my Photos library as starting points) were barely recognizable as portraits of their subjects.

My daughter — an exacting critic — deemed only one of them OK. The subject, my son Olin, was not a fan.

I didn’t care much for them either, tbh. I’m not a fan of the cartoonish style Apple chose, which is clearly intended to head off any deepfake controversies.

Still, it was a lot of fun to play around with. Here’s all you need to know to get started with Apple’s new AI art tool.

Also in today’s newsletter:

— Leander Kahney, EIC.

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One more thing ...

Things happen fairly slowly, you know. They do. These waves of technology, you can see them way before they happen, and you just have to choose wisely which ones you're going to surf. If you choose unwisely, then you can waste a lot of energy, but if you choose wisely it actually unfolds fairly slowly. It takes years. One of our biggest insights [years ago] was that we didn't want to get into any business where we didn't own or control the primary technology because you'll get your head handed to you.

— Steve Jobs, 2008.

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