Since first introducing the Space Zoom feature with the Galaxy S20 Ultra, Samsung has frequently used spectacular photos of the moon to demonstrate the extreme zoom capabilities of its flagship devices. Samsung admits that its photo application uses artificial intelligence to improve photos, but has never specified exactly how.
However, in a post that appeared on Reddit and received hundreds of comments and thousands of shares, the writer shows through a large number of photographs and experiments that Samsung’s artificial intelligence, according to him, does more than just improve the photograph – it actually re-edits it, while adding details that did not appear in the original photograph and were taken from photographs others. Simply put, after the app detects a photograph of the moon, it adds details to it that are taken from other photographs captured with more professional lenses.
In this way, sharp and detailed photographs are obtained in which the details of the moon’s soil can be discerned, but as mentioned, these are details that come from other photographs that are combined over the image that was actually taken with the device. According to the author of the post, and many of the commenters, this is exactly the line between improvement through artificial intelligence, and between a photograph that is allegedly fake, and in their opinion Samsung has undoubtedly crossed it.
In the past, Huawei was also accused of making similar claims regarding the ‘moon mode’ of the P30 Pro camera, claims which the company denied. Samsung, meanwhile, has yet to respond to the publication.