Google Photos’ AI Panorama Failed in the Best Way

Alex Harker was skiing with friends at the Lake Louise ski resort in Banff, Alberta, a week ago when the group stopped to take some photos on Harker’s Android smartphone. After shooting a few shots, Harker found that the AI-powered panorama stitching feature inside his Google Photos app had created the photo above as the suggested panorama for his scene.

For some reason, Google Photos saw fit to insert Harker’s friend Matt as a colossal bust in the snowy mountain landscape, making the guy look like a colossus peering over the hill at Harker.

“Google Photos offers you animations if several photos are taken in quick succession, sometimes puts filters on your photos, and offers panoramas if it notices your photos are side by side,” Harker writes.

“I literally took like 3 pictures, one with them in, and two without them,” he says. “And for some bizarre reason Google Assistant offered me a really strange panorama of the 3 photos spliced together.”

Here are the three photos Google Photos saw before it decided to create its masterpiece:

Last Thursday, Harker shared the photo on Reddit with the caption: “I took a few shots at Lake Louise today and Google offered me this panorama.” The post has racked up over 187,000 upvotes and has become one of the top Reddit posts of all time.

Good job, Google Photos. You’re so intelligent that even your fails turn into big wins.


Image credits: Photographs by Alex Harker and used with permission

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