Apple throws its hat into the AI-generated image ring

Image generated with Image Creator from Microsoft Designer

Apple, in collaboration with researchers from the University of California, has released its own AI-based image editing model that and anybody can try.

The model has been dubbed "MGIE," which stands for MLLM-Guided Image Editing and allows users to edit images based on natural language instructions. It leverages multimodal large language models (MLLMs), which combine various types of information, such as text, photos, and videos, to understand and generate human-like language.

While studies on MLLMs have shown promising results in understanding and generating images, they haven't been implemented widely yet.

MGIE was presented in a paper at the International Conference on Learning Representations 2024. The paper showcases how MGIE can improve automatic metrics and human evaluation while also maintaining competitive inference efficiency.

MGIE utilizes MLLMs to derive expressive instructions from user input. Venture Beat offers an example: a user could tell MGIE to "make the sky more blue," and MGIE would interpret this as "increase the saturation of the sky region by 20%."

How MGIE interprets natural language | Image Credit: Apple, UC Santa Barbara

Then, once the instructions are derived from the natural-language input, it generates an edited version of the image. It can be used to create a wide range of edits, ranging from color adjustments to generating or removing parts of an image.

MGIE is open-source and available on GitHub for anyone to try. The GitHub page allows users to snag the code, data, and pre-trained models.

The speed of image generation will vary significantly based on hardware performance. Also, models such as this are incredibly RAM hungry.

Apple has been working behind the scenes on its AI-assisted features for some time now. In January, code in the iOS 17.4 beta suggested that Apple is working on a new AI-powered version of Siri.

Apple stock has taken a beating as of late, in part because analysts have loudly proclaimed that the company is behind Meta, Google, and Microsoft in generative AI implementation. It's not clear why this wasn't a problem when it wasn't first to a mobile phone, a tablet, a smartwatch, or a VR headset, but is with generative AI.

Perhaps to dissuade those analysts, Apple CEO Tim Cook recently said that Apple is spending "a tremendous amount of time and effort" on AI features that will be announced in the coming months. He also noted that Apple has been working internally on generative AI.

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36 Comments

foregoneconclusion

said about 2 months ago

Ultimately, it's just a huge waste of electricity similar to crypto.

robin huber

said about 2 months ago

Anyone thinking that if you click on the link provided to try editing your photos will be disappointed. Unless you are a coder or computer scientist it’s just gobbledegook.

gatorguy

said about 2 months ago

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least a half-baked something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

foregoneconclusion

said about 2 months ago

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Every company rushed out AI. It's the standard tech sector fast-break that hopes to get it entrenched into daily lives before the legal aspect and regulatory aspect catches up.

StudioSoup

said about 2 months ago

gatorguy said:

It's fairly obvious that Apple is rushing out at least something in order to claim "we do AI too, just like those other guys," and for the silliest of reasons: Prop up a stock price.

Apple the corporation doesn't get a cent more if the stock goes up, or a penny less if it goes down. But Cook and the rest of the upper management team certainly does, with much of their pay coming in the form of company stock rather than cash. Thus we have these kinds of kneejerk things announced by them now instead of the slow and steady development without broadcasting the internal baby steps that we typically expect from Apple.

It's silly when Samsung/Google/random tech company, responds to some new Apple service or product with "Hey, look what we're working on, it's just as good!" and equally as silly when Apple turns around and does the same thing.

This is kind of a silly take for a publicly traded company. The executive team has a fiduciary responsibility to help maximize shareholder value. Doing so requires them to carefully consider long-term vs short-term costs and gains resulting from their actions as they navigate the ship, and t's the very reason why much of their compensation is tied to long-term stock value. Doing so helps maintain alignment of their personal financial incentives with positive long-term performance for shareholders.

Additionally, Apple has been working on AI for years... They have simply chosen to refer to it as "machine learning" instead. These have been the baby steps, as you call them, and it's unfounded to now say they're doing anything knee-jerk or just started putting resources into AI only recently. And putting out something open source before integrating it into their products, as outlined in this article, is also part of their baby steps.

Apple reacts to changes in market demands and technological advances just like any other organization which doesn't want to become a technological dinosaur. They would be doing the brand and shareholders a disservice if they didn't put significant resources into AI pursuits and there's no reason to think the fruits of those pursuits will not ultimately be integrated into their product line in thoughtful and useful ways. Nothing about this is silly.