Sony touts AI Camera Assistant for Xperia, gets dragged in social media replies

The reception to Sony's latest AI feature for its Xperia cameras appears to be a resounding, 'Thanks, we hate it.'

Overnight in the U.S., Sony showed off a new feature coming to its Xperia line of cameras. The AI Camera Assistant is said to use artificial intelligence to automatically adjust shots to optimize color, exposure, contrast, and other qualities. However, users have looked at the examples Sony provided and have responded with a big thumbs down.

The most negative reactions are in the replies of Sony's X (formerly Twitter) post, summed up by the top one that reads, "Best Anti-AI ads ever, thank you Sony!" The main issue is that Sony's provided examples all appear to be excessively brightened and overly contrasted to the point that they all look worse than the original shots. The photos all appear to lose detail and color through the AI tool, ultimately degrading their original quality. Sony's efforts have also been scrutinized by ResetEra and Reddit, both user bases dragging the AI Camera Assistant in comments.

Sony Xperia's tool is the latest case of a company showing off generative AI features to "fix" images and instead making them dramatically worse. The most famous example in recent weeks has been NVIDIA's DLSS 5, which has been heavily panned by users for degrading the visual quality of various games and, in some cases, negating the vision of their original artists.

Shacknews staff does not use generative artificial intelligence (AI) in their content. Shacknews strictly prohibits the use of its content for AI training or to generate text, including text in the style or format used for this publication. Shacknews reserves all rights to this work.