Cameras never lie. Except that it does – and it seems to be happening more often all the time.

As smartphones have become ubiquitous, digital editing of photos has become commonplace, from boosting colours to adjusting light levels.

The debate about what it means to photograph reality is now fueled by a new breed of smartphone tools powered by artificial intelligence (AI).

Google’s latest smartphones, the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro, go a step further than similar devices from other manufacturers. Artificial intelligence is being used to alter the expressions on people’s faces in photographs.

We’ve all experienced it: one person in a group picture looks away from the camera or fails to smile. Machine learning is now being used in Google’s phones to bring a smile from a different photo of them into the picture as a result of looking through your photos. Best Take is what Google calls it.

With Magic Editor, users can also erase, move, and resize unwanted elements in a photo, “filling in” the spaces left by people and buildings. Based on knowledge gleaned from millions of other photos, an artificial intelligence algorithm determines what textures should fill the gap by analyzing the surrounding pixels.

It doesn’t have to be a picture taken on the device. You can apply the Magic Editor or Best Take to any picture in your Google Photos library using the Pixel 8 Pro.

In order to compete with Samsung, Apple and others, the company must have good camera quality and software – and AI features are seen as the company’s unique selling point.

The quality of the camera system’s photos was praised by all the reviewers who raised concerns.