We asked, you told us: Here's what you think of AI-generated moon photos

Samsung phones have been in the headlines this week after a Redditor’s experiment revealed that Galaxy phones do some questionable things when taking photos of the moon. More specifically, the Redditor found that Galaxy phones added lunar details to a blurry, low-resolution photo of the moon when the Scene Optimizer was enabled.

This saga suggested that Samsung was generating details for its AI-enabled moon snaps rather than enhancing them. But do you care whether your moon snaps are generated by AI? We posted this question earlier this week, and here’s how you answered it.

Do you care if your moon mode shot is generated by AI?

Results

It turns out that the single most popular answer was “No, I just want a great moon image,” accounting for almost 39% of the 1,600 votes cast. This suggests that many polled readers don’t care if there’s tomfoolery afoot as long as they get a nice moon shot.

Meanwhile, almost 34% of polled readers say that some AI-generated details are okay when shooting an image of the moon. Finally, almost 28% of respondents say that any AI generation isn’t okay when snapping pictures of the moon.

When you put it another way, over 70% of respondents seem to think that some AI-generated details are fine at the very least. But it certainly looks like many surveyed readers also feel that there is such a thing as going overboard.

Comments

• Ellio74: At this point we should just take the best moon picture we already have and upload it to every phone then
• ChrisPollard77: I don’t have an issue so much with the technology being used, but more the mostly deceptive MARKETING they put behind the feature. If they did a presentation saying, “Look at this incredible moon shot, taken with the S23 Ultra – artificially enhanced to look like the moon you’re seeing with your eyes,” I’d be okay with that. But they leave out the last part, making it sound like the camera’s optics are what capture the detail, when they are not.
• Fernando RR: Leave my moon shots alone! AI or not, I am the one standing there holding the phone waiting, struggling to stay still and try not to shake. zoom in and out. And saves me a lot of time. VS taking 20+pictures with my DSLR, stack, post process, etc.
  I can also add that NOT every shot works, this morning I could not get the damn moon to look even a little decent. Pictures were still very blur, out of focus. But if AI is really going to do the entire edit, then please do them even when there is a bit of clouds around? Anyways I appreciate the help Samsung. Its not like I’m winning awards from cellphone pictures.
• Mark Hamilton: Sad thing is that any regular camera with 10x optical zoom, and even some with only digital zoom, can already take good pictures of the moon (and capture craters). All you generally have to do is put it on a tripod and adjust the manual settings to avoid overexposure. I could get fairly good shots of the moon on my Galaxy S10, and even captured nice pictures of the stars and milky way by putting my phone on a tripod and adjusting the exposure times. You don’t need a super-expensive flagship phone to do this, and you could get even better results with a cheap camera. Sadly, Samsung has stooped to all-out deception to sell more phones. It’s not okay, and people shouldn’t be happy with this.