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liendolucas 2 hours ago [-]
Why everything has to be touched by AI? I really don't get it. Not long ago a canadian writer was also in the center of a storm accused of using AI in a novel that won a prize.
Why do people fall for it so easily? Is it just laziness? Rush to finish things? We are so much better at creating new things that using the tech feels like cheating to ourselves.
pixl97 13 minutes ago [-]
Why do we use a shovel instead of our hands? Why do we use cars instead of walking? Why do we use libraries instead of writing all the functions ourselves?
The issue here is you're trying to make something a binary that is a continuum. Humans are tool users and the vast majority of animals depend wholly on their bodies to accomplish everything. It's our greatest strength and weakness.
>We are so much better at creating new things
Are we? If this were really true we'd have had rockets at least 10 thousand years ago if not more. Actual 'new' creations that are not mixes of previous things are incredibly rare and most of those are found by shear luck with interacting with the natural world. We love telling ourselves a particular story about how creative and wonderful and fucking great we are but the vast majority of human behavior, including my own is just an iterative copy of other humans behavior.
bayindirh 2 hours ago [-]
Human body, esp. brain (or more broadly even nature) has a motivation to do more with less energy expenditure.
Drugs allows you to cope with hard things or allows you to escape the toll you have to pay.
Similarly, AI allows brain to do more with less energy expenditure. This is why it looks so tasty and is very addictive.
Your brain doesn't work at that hard, AI allows this, however there's no free lunch on that planet. The effort you give into something returns as quality and finesse, however it's tiring as well.
Addiction is a complex is a hard problem regardless what you are addicted to, it's not a light or easy matter to discuss, though.
prmph 2 hours ago [-]
OK, but not only that. People learn quickly that in most contexts, expending effort to create a high quality work is not noticed much less rewarded.
It's like anything goes in most human endeavors. Society is winging it; duct-taped solutions abound. Most people lack taste or a keen eye for quality, and only notice when there is something seriously wrong. Even then, politics and all sorts of other concerns skews how people respond to things. This is why we complain about AI slop in the fields we know about, while the public at large think AI is the best thing after sliced bread.
Faced with this, unless someone is really passionate about their work, they eventually kind of tune out, and then look for how to expend the least effort possible to get whatever (uncertain or politicized) reward they can in their endeavors.
smallerize 3 hours ago [-]
I still don't think the disqualified photographer was intentionally cheating. He was pretty open about his process, and Nikon took some time to determine whether it was within the rules or not. https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/10/winning-nikon-small-...
Edit: an earlier statement from Nikon said that he was complying with the investigation and "At this time, we don't see that any rules were violated" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck4gjn1yzprno
qubidt 2 hours ago [-]
I don't think that's an honest summary of what happened. It seems like every other scientist was pointing out aspects of the submission that were clearly generated by AI. things appearing out of nowhere or behaviors and appearances that don't match reality at all. it's pretty clear AI was not used purely to post process b/w source images. Or at the very least, was not used responsibly. Whether or not he intended to cheat, the lack of discipline is pretty egregious
mannykannot 2 hours ago [-]
What you see as evidence of a weak case I see as evidence of the judges being responsibly cautious, and affording the photographer every reasonable opportunity to make their case. I would need to see additional evidence before I took a statement beginning "at this time..." as stronger evidence than something subsequently stated by the same party.
As it happens, the final decision is not that the disqualified photographer was intentionally cheating, but that the video was ineligible for the competition.
suzzer99 3 hours ago [-]
Did he ever share the raw source?
3 hours ago [-]
jacquesm 2 hours ago [-]
They were giving him the opportunity to withdraw the submission.
3 hours ago [-]
paxy 56 minutes ago [-]
Photography in general is in a weird place right now. AI-assisted autofocus, subject tracking, zoom/upscaling, exposure, white balance, noise reduction, color correction, HDR and lots more that all cameras have now is considered fine. Heavy AI-assisted editing in tools like Lightroom is considered fine. But the second an LLM gets involved for even the tiniest detail suddenly everyone is in agreement that "this is AI!!"
bayindirh 38 minutes ago [-]
> AI-assisted autofocus, subject tracking...
This is already present for the last decade. It's the foundation which makes "sports DSLRs" possible. AI here is not what we know as today's "AI". These are specialized models baked into DSPs to run at inhuman speeds. In Sony's case it's phase data, image itself, information from the lens, and sometimes the accelerometers on camera. This is not making something up from thin air.
AI assisted autofocus is smarter phase detect autofocus. Subject tracking is an educated guess for where the focus shall move, based on movements in the image.
My ~20 year old Nikon D70s has a 1004 pixel "scene detection and metering" sensor "trained" on thousands of images to make educated guesses in full-frame metering mode to exposure correctly. This is in no way helping or altering the image in any way. Same for faster autofocus and object tracking.
Exposure, white balance, noise reduction, color correction, HDR et al can be all achieved with deterministic and traditional algorithms as well. Some of these processes have history in film photography and carried over to digital from analog. Some photographers are famous for their darkroom treatment of their shots during development.
Processing an image with deterministic algorithms using the data in the raw photo is fine. This is how darkrooms work as well. However, guessing things, altering images by adding something which was not there and claiming otherwise is not acceptable. This can be a new element inside the scene or pixel details which was not resolvable by the lens/sensor/film to begin with. Both are "photomanipulation", not photography.
hingler36 44 minutes ago [-]
I feel like the distinction comes down to "edited" vs "generated", but even here the line can be blurry. For example, is AI denoise really just removing noise from an image, or is it generating a new image of what it thinks the original signal was?
nemomarx 31 minutes ago [-]
Think of those Samsung moons? That was really just creating new information on demand for a while. I think it looks pretty tacky too.
bayindirh 33 minutes ago [-]
> is AI denoise really just removing noise from an image...
This is why I like Darktable's profiled denoiser. It works by using a noise profile measured with a deterministic process using the camera you're targeting. In short, it's tailored to your sensor by profiling your sensor.
Terr_ 5 hours ago [-]
14 days ago 38 points, 64 comments (though some threads were... questionable.)
Aw, they took the video down. I was curious to see how egregious the AI usage was.
UnlockedSecrets 4 hours ago [-]
Read the article and see the video there
andrewstuart 3 hours ago [-]
Why would someone do this?
It makes no sense why you’d do something so foolish.
jfengel 1 hours ago [-]
Publish or perish. The stakes are incredibly high. Cheating may be the difference between keeping and losing your job.
Especially since everyone else is aware of that. If you don't take the risk, you will lose to someone who did and got away with it.
This researcher is in China, where I gather the competition is even fiercer than in the West. I do not know that for a fact, but if it is true it makes it even clearer.
Viewed that way it's not foolish. It's actually mandatory. And it's just going to get more prominent as the AI makes fewer mistakes, and competitors get better at spotting and removing them.
AspireOne 2 minutes ago [-]
Man... This is so sad, disappointing and worrying. For some reason, your explanation in particular struck a nerve with me. Who could have predicted all the nuanced social consequences that AI would bring upon us. I don't yet know what position to take in my head on all of this. It's too much change, despite believing that the world will change and adapt. In particular, that human work will become more valuable - but as a craft. As an endeavor you do because it's artful, not because it's mandatory, or the most optimal way to quality or speed. And those two categories - human and ai work - will become very separate. While the economical value or even expectations of absolute quality in the human work will plummet.
Similarly, I expect "raw"-ness to gain on value. Photos untouched by AI or filters. Physical objects. The non-digital. Who knows, maybe physical media will make a comeback.
Either way, it's not good times we're living through, and I don't particularly appreciate all of this happening after *just* becoming an adult in the world.
xbar 3 hours ago [-]
There are low-integrity folks who are willing to risk getting caught for fakery in public spaces in trade for the promise of notoriety.
Chicanery seems to scale anywhere that there are insufficient institutional barriers.
mattz56 4 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
sehw 3 hours ago [-]
[flagged]
dewey 3 hours ago [-]
Don't take it personal, HN is always hit and miss, sometimes someone reposts the story 2h later and it gets traction just because a few people happen to have browsed /new and upvoted it.
That's the reason why there's a "second chance" pool where things can be revived.
dewey 1 hours ago [-]
sehw: I can't reply to your post as it's marked "dead", but the points are not important, that's why they are not a very visible part of the page in any case. Complaining about being downvoted is usually counter-productive.
Just continue to share interesting links, comment on topics you care about and don't worry about the silly internet points.
sehw 3 hours ago [-]
[dead]
smallerize 3 hours ago [-]
That one is dead, and not flagged dead. Maybe email the Contact link at the bottom of the page and ask what's up.
Why do people fall for it so easily? Is it just laziness? Rush to finish things? We are so much better at creating new things that using the tech feels like cheating to ourselves.
The issue here is you're trying to make something a binary that is a continuum. Humans are tool users and the vast majority of animals depend wholly on their bodies to accomplish everything. It's our greatest strength and weakness.
>We are so much better at creating new things
Are we? If this were really true we'd have had rockets at least 10 thousand years ago if not more. Actual 'new' creations that are not mixes of previous things are incredibly rare and most of those are found by shear luck with interacting with the natural world. We love telling ourselves a particular story about how creative and wonderful and fucking great we are but the vast majority of human behavior, including my own is just an iterative copy of other humans behavior.
Drugs allows you to cope with hard things or allows you to escape the toll you have to pay.
Similarly, AI allows brain to do more with less energy expenditure. This is why it looks so tasty and is very addictive.
Your brain doesn't work at that hard, AI allows this, however there's no free lunch on that planet. The effort you give into something returns as quality and finesse, however it's tiring as well.
Addiction is a complex is a hard problem regardless what you are addicted to, it's not a light or easy matter to discuss, though.
It's like anything goes in most human endeavors. Society is winging it; duct-taped solutions abound. Most people lack taste or a keen eye for quality, and only notice when there is something seriously wrong. Even then, politics and all sorts of other concerns skews how people respond to things. This is why we complain about AI slop in the fields we know about, while the public at large think AI is the best thing after sliced bread.
Faced with this, unless someone is really passionate about their work, they eventually kind of tune out, and then look for how to expend the least effort possible to get whatever (uncertain or politicized) reward they can in their endeavors.
Edit: an earlier statement from Nikon said that he was complying with the investigation and "At this time, we don't see that any rules were violated" https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/ck4gjn1yzprno
As it happens, the final decision is not that the disqualified photographer was intentionally cheating, but that the video was ineligible for the competition.
This is already present for the last decade. It's the foundation which makes "sports DSLRs" possible. AI here is not what we know as today's "AI". These are specialized models baked into DSPs to run at inhuman speeds. In Sony's case it's phase data, image itself, information from the lens, and sometimes the accelerometers on camera. This is not making something up from thin air.
AI assisted autofocus is smarter phase detect autofocus. Subject tracking is an educated guess for where the focus shall move, based on movements in the image.
My ~20 year old Nikon D70s has a 1004 pixel "scene detection and metering" sensor "trained" on thousands of images to make educated guesses in full-frame metering mode to exposure correctly. This is in no way helping or altering the image in any way. Same for faster autofocus and object tracking.
Exposure, white balance, noise reduction, color correction, HDR et al can be all achieved with deterministic and traditional algorithms as well. Some of these processes have history in film photography and carried over to digital from analog. Some photographers are famous for their darkroom treatment of their shots during development.
Processing an image with deterministic algorithms using the data in the raw photo is fine. This is how darkrooms work as well. However, guessing things, altering images by adding something which was not there and claiming otherwise is not acceptable. This can be a new element inside the scene or pixel details which was not resolvable by the lens/sensor/film to begin with. Both are "photomanipulation", not photography.
This is why I like Darktable's profiled denoiser. It works by using a noise profile measured with a deterministic process using the camera you're targeting. In short, it's tailored to your sensor by profiling your sensor.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50038640
It makes no sense why you’d do something so foolish.
Especially since everyone else is aware of that. If you don't take the risk, you will lose to someone who did and got away with it.
This researcher is in China, where I gather the competition is even fiercer than in the West. I do not know that for a fact, but if it is true it makes it even clearer.
Viewed that way it's not foolish. It's actually mandatory. And it's just going to get more prominent as the AI makes fewer mistakes, and competitors get better at spotting and removing them.
Similarly, I expect "raw"-ness to gain on value. Photos untouched by AI or filters. Physical objects. The non-digital. Who knows, maybe physical media will make a comeback.
Either way, it's not good times we're living through, and I don't particularly appreciate all of this happening after *just* becoming an adult in the world.
Chicanery seems to scale anywhere that there are insufficient institutional barriers.
That's the reason why there's a "second chance" pool where things can be revived.
Just continue to share interesting links, comment on topics you care about and don't worry about the silly internet points.