There’s been a lot of talk surrounding AI recently, but I honestly haven’t paid too much attention to all the fuss. Beyond watching Ex-Machina and occasionally pondering how robots will inevitably take over the world, AI technology has been pretty absent in my thought-rolodex.
At least that was the case until a few weeks ago.
Adobe recently released its “Generative Fill” feature in the latest Photoshop update, which can convincingly fill in empty space in photos, drawings, or whatever type of image you feed it. The heated debate of “AI art” seems to be the latest divisive fad among internet nerds right now, so I decided to take a crack at it myself and see how far I could push this futuristic feature.
Being that many of skating’s most iconic photos are in a portrait orientation (often with text overlayed on top for covers, ads, or whatever else), it seemed like a perfect opportunity to see what sort of landscape-oriented alternate universes AI could dream up. Although these weren’t generated by just one simple click (like most videos out there will show) this experiment has shown that it didn’t take very much effort to fabricate a passable reality.
*DUMBASS DISCLAIMER* While these AI edits seem somewhat passable, we know there is no replacement for actual human skateboarding photographers. Any disgruntled photographers can direct their quarrels in a strongly worded e-mail to [email protected]
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June 16, 2023 9:58 pm
great idea… this shit is crazy. Questioning if the revisions or original are ‘better’ maybe, sometimes… strange days.
June 18, 2023 12:58 pm
I gave you another chance AI, and you’ve let me down again.
This isn’t really a great demonstration of AI, though, is it? This is more inline with Photoshop’s Content Aware fill, where static binary data is guessed at based on neighboring data.
Far more impressive will be conjuring a non-existent alternate angle. Looking up at the underside of Jeremy Wray’s board for example. Or down at Gonz from a cell window. Etc.
June 21, 2023 2:17 pm
You really decided to give AI ‘another chance’ with a jenkem article? Rotting mush pea brain syndrome.
August 30, 2025 3:43 pm
Jenkem, you corny