Tag: AI

Google’s AI-powered Pro Zoom is neither pro nor zoom

An AI-enhanced image of downtown Salt Lake City at 50x zoom as seen from Kearns High School on Saturday, June 27, 2026.
An AI-enhanced image of downtown Salt Lake City at 50x zoom as seen from Kearns High School on Saturday, June 27, 2026.

I was excited to unbox the Pixel 10 Pro last week, especially as the defective screen on my Pixel 7 was detaching for the third time. I was eager to try out the new-to-me triple camera setup, which I think lived up to expectations based on some of the photos I took Saturday at the Eccles 2002 Olympic Winter Games Museum at the Utah Olympic Park in Park City.

I shot these photos through glass-covered display cases, which can reflect some pretty nasty glare. I thought I was using the 5x telephoto lens but it appears I was using the main lens. However, the main camera allowed me to get close to the medals, pins and other objects while allowing me to find angles to downplay the glare.

On my old phone, I used the heck out of the 2x zoom feature (which simply cropped in on a 1x photo without any further digital manipulation). I’m looking forward to getting tighter action shots with the 5x telephoto lens.

I’m not likely to use another feature that Google touted for the new Pixel 10 Pro — the Pro Zoom feature, which promises photos up to 100x zoom. This feature supposedly works because Google sends the raw image through its AI to extrapolate and enhance the image.

My initial finding is that this feature is half-baked and more likely to replace a blurry, grainy image with a simulated nightmare reminiscent of computer-generated images from at least a decade ago. Even worse, the feature tries to substitute imagery that the algorithm supposes is there, but it introduces fake and misleading information. For example, when I tested the feature at Best Buy, the Pro Zoom feature was able to sharpen a brand name on a distant box, but introduced literal Greeking in place of smaller text it couldn’t fully scan.

Coming back from curling on Saturday, I was drawn into the parking lot of Kearns High School with its view of the Salt Lake Valley from the west. I wanted to see how much the Pixel 10 Pro’s cameras could push into downtown Salt Lake City over 10 miles away.

I started with the wideangle lens and the 1x zoom on the main camera, but they don’t show too much detail of the distant urban core. I saw better results with the 2x zoom and the telephoto lens at 5x.

Even at 2x zoom, downtown looked too distant. The 5x lens definitely added a lot of detail and might be usable with some additional cropping.

Things got dicier when I pushed the digital zoom on the 5x lens and Google added what should be AI magic. The image at the beginning of this post is at about 50x. It’s a little blurry with some computer artifacts, but most landmarks are still recognizable. It does appear that Google’s AI replaced part of the rotunda dome atop the Capitol with the foothills behind it.

I kept pushing in, up to 100x, as I tried to make out the Salt Lake Temple in the heart of downtown.

For reference, this is a photo from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints showing what the temple looks like.

Google took the raw image, ran it through AI and came up with … something not even close to the Salt Lake Temple —

An AI-enhanced image of downtown Salt Lake City purportedly at 100x zoom taken from Kearns High School on Saturday, June 27, 2026. The spires are supposed to be the Salt Lake Temple, but it doesn't match the building's true appearance.
An AI-enhanced image of downtown Salt Lake City purportedly at 100x zoom taken from Kearns High School on Saturday, June 27, 2026. The spires are supposed to be the Salt Lake Temple, but it doesn’t match the building’s true appearance.

This is a mess and epitomizes the phrase “AI slop.” The spires in the center of the image look more like poorly rendered Buddhist temples from Asia. The overall effect of the zoomed-in image feels like image textures applied to 3D objects in older computer games, like SimCity 4.

I also tried to zoom in on what I thought was Rice-Eccles Stadium at the University of Utah. The result did _not_ look like a stadium, but rather some low-slung buildings took the place of stadium seats behind the building’s main facade. To be fair, the angle from Kearns made it a little tricky make out the stands.

I’ve been ambivalent about digital zoom on cameras and phones for years as it can’t add information beyond what the camera sensor captures. Over the years, companies like Google have used computational computing to enhance images (although part of this tech often merges multiple, slightly different versions of an image to come up with an ideal overall photo).

While mere digital zoom can’t add info, Google and other companies are attempting to use AI to filling in missing details but the initial results leave much to be desired.

Every time there is a major technological advance, there is often a debate on how to maintain journalistic ethics. For example, how much can one use Photoshop on an image while maintaining its authenticity? Some image toning is generally OK, but cutting out a subject and placing it over another background would be a no-no unless it clearly looks like an illustration and is clearly labeled.

The ability to use what we call AI to spin images and videos out of whole cloth has sparked new debates. However, I don’t see a debate for now with Pro Zoom or similar tech — these poorly generated images bear little semblance to reality and should not be used in news reporting or at all.

That might change with future advances, but Pro Zoom doesn’t appear to be anywhere close to being usable for now.

Review: Couldn’t fall for ‘Her’ (** of four)

For a movie about the unexpected romantic connection between a man and his computer, “Her” from writer/director Spike Jonze was oddly disengaging.

I must admit that I didn’t enter the film with a lot of energy on a lazy Saturday afternoon, but I was completely checked out and ultimately dissatisfied at the end of the film’s 2+ hours (although my two companions enjoyed it). I was so desperate for something energetic to happen that I was expecting/hoping the protagonist would jump off a building in the final scenes. Alas, no.*

Joaquin Phoenix does a decent job portraying Theodore Twombly, a relatively successful, yet schlubby, man who ironically works as an intermediary writing romantic and touching cards for others, but is unable to find romantic fulfillment for himself since before his marriage ended in divorce.

Enter Samantha, an artificial intelligence “operating system” voiced by Scarlett Johansson, whom Twombly develops a near-instant rapport with. While Twombly appears as a man who desperately needs a connection, Samantha has different motivations, but becomes as smitten as he after she absorbs the emails and other detritus of Phoenix’s life.

While the couple’s love apparently deepens as they explore the frontiers and boundaries of their nascent relationship, I continued to feel on the outside. Perhaps it may have been more engaging if the AI had a physical presence (although the film addresses that in a quirky way). I do not fault Johansson’s performance given what she had to work with.

Oftentimes, creators of TV and film are encouraged to show and not tell. Given the non-corporeal status of the titular character, Jonze has to resort to Samantha telling more often than not. Compounding that problem is that the dialog can be oddly clunky at times, such as in scenes were Samantha says she feels liberated by her lack of a body. The act of showing the development of the relationship falls on Phoenix’s shoulders, but his earnest effort failed to win me over.

The pacing of the movie is often languid, which had the unfortunate side effect of lulling me into a near stupor. Interspersed are rare frenetic and jarring moments — some of them deal with virtual sex experiences that aren’t necessarily obscene, but audibly suggestive. They are blatant enough to justify the film’s “R” rating.

On a positive note, the film is often beautiful and slyly futuristic — 3-D interactive games that work!, a Los Angeles subway that goes to the ocean!, high-speed rail in California!, etc. One of the brightest moments was a puckishly profane non-playable character in the game Phoenix plays.

The film is firmly set in Los Angeles, but occasionally includes other-worldly glimpses that likely reflect the secondary filming location in Singapore (the high-speed train and the Chinese language signs were easy tells).

Perhaps one of Jonze’s points is that people are as likely to succeed in finding unexpected ways to connect as they are to fail. One can see that theme repeated throughout the film, at Phoenix’s job, with the AI and other characters’ relationships.

Even in the end, when I wanted Phoenix’s character to jump off a building, at least he was with someone.

* – Such comments are about fictional characters. In reality, suicide is a serious matter and I wouldn’t kid about it. Know the signs. Go back to previous paragraph.

Two stars out of four.