Autodraw – Fast Drawing for Everyone
Google keeps coming up with ways to use machine learning to do autofills, suggestions, etc.
A month ago Allo [0], then that article in Verge about computational photography [1], then cameras without lenses [2] and now this. There is no question that this is all very powerful and awesome, but it also raises some questions, like who is the creator of a photo / drawing? Is every photo / drawing going to look the same in the future?<p>Here is an illustration of what I am concerned about:<p>My wife downloaded google "Allo" (Yet another chat app where you can change font size. Innovative, I know.). It also happens to suggest answers so you don't have to type as much.<p>Here is how it went:<p><pre><code>  She: Hi!
  Me: Hi how r u
  She: Where r u
  She: Where r u now?
  She: At home?
  She: Working?
  She: I missed u
  Me: Working
  Me: Missed u too
  Me: What u doing?
  She: How are u?
  Me: Fine thank u
  Me: What about u?
  Me: What are u doing?
  Me: Can i see u?
  She: Working
  Me: Oh
  She: Yes
  Me: Where r u from?
  Me: Who are u?
</code></pre>
And it kept on going for a long long time, none of us actually saying anything real, but both of us learning a lot about what looks like an average socially awkward American teenager conversation.
It had love, beauty, cuteness, gifs, it even made us add some daily love quote bot to our thread, but we never actually typed anything ourselves because it was so easy not to.
Of course we both knew it and thought that it's funny, but I can't shake this weird feeling
that something is very wrong with this and that in the long term we are being brainwashed to be a dumber, more superficial version of ourselves.<p>p.s. I never use "r u", I find it lazy.<p><pre><code>  [0] https://allo.google.com/
  [1] https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/18/13315168/google-pixel-camera-software-marc-levoy
  [2] https://www.theverge.com/2017/4/12/15267486/photography-machine-learning-future
</code></pre>
Edit: formatting.