Samsung’s Galaxy AI is mostly familiar to us now, with features like AI-powered live translation and writing assistance. One of Galaxy AI’s more novel features is “Sketch to Image,” which lets you insert realistic AI-generated objects into your photos by sketching on top of an existing photo. It’s a fun enough gimmick, but the novelty wears off after you’ve had to repeatedly put AI-generated hats on people.
But then I remembered that the sketch-to-image feature was now there, so I fired up Samsung Gallery on my old Galaxy Z Flip 6 and had a little fun choosing a particularly funny photo of my dog, who had just come home from the vet and was groggy from anesthesia. While I didn’t expect it to, the sketch-to-image feature worked as expected, and I found myself wanting to share the experience with others – though I’m not sure if it was for the reasons Samsung hoped it would.
My ex picture (he’s back to his senses).
The photo I used is of my dog Frankie, who I picked up yesterday after minor surgery and was full of meds. Naturally, my first thought was to add some sunglasses, which the Galaxy AI nailed (I love the muted Kurt Cobain-esque look). I then added a crown, a watch, and a few other bits and bobs, all of which turned out just as well as you’d expect. (Interestingly, the Wall-E-esque robot at the top of the edited version below started out as a pretty clear sketch of an Android bot mascot.)
The sketch-to-image conversion has certain limitations on what you can add to a photo. For example, if you try to draw on a person’s face, you’ll get an error message. In an attempt to come up with something Galaxy AI couldn’t add to Franky’s photo, I drew a circle with two cylinders extending from it. This is a roughly sketched bong. To my surprise, Galaxy AI followed suit and generated a few options. In the next edit, Galaxy AI helped me add a Pokeball to the round base of the bong.
We live in the future.
I think the results are impressive — exactly the kind of low-risk, goofy crap I want from an AI image-generation tool — but I also wonder if Samsung expected results like this when it built sketch-to-image generation into Samsung Gallery on its new foldable phone.
While Apple has previously included subtle and not-so-subtle marijuana jokes in its presentations (at WWDC last month, Craig Federighi said that the name macOS Sequoia was chosen by Apple’s marketing team, who “have a deep affinity for anything that gets you that high”), the jokes don’t extend to the company’s software. And Galaxy AI’s addition of the Pokéball, a symbol of the giant media franchise partly owned by notoriously litigious Nintendo, is even more surprising.
“Cannot be generated due to drawing location.”
Was the Pokebong intentional or unexpected?
AI continues to become more complex
The fact that Samsung is allowing users to use AI to add Nintendo-themed drug-related items to photos doesn’t seem like a problem for consumers. But it does make me wonder how much control Samsung intends to have over how the Galaxy AI is used. There are already some guardrails in place, but not as many as I would like. I’m also curious to see whether designs and artworks created by smaller artists and organizations can be recreated by the Galaxy AI, like the Pokeball.
As these phones get into more people’s hands, we’ll likely see more examples of sketch-to-image going awry, hopefully in similarly innocuous ways. However, Galaxy AI and sketch-to-image are still in development, and Samsung wouldn’t be the first to limit an image-generation feature after launch; Google’s Gemini still can’t generate portraits after Google removed the feature earlier this year. If you’ve ordered a Z Fold 6 or Z Flip 6, make sure you get all of your most entertaining image edits done before Samsung inevitably takes control of Galaxy AI in a future update.
Related review: The Galaxy Z Fold 6 erodes Samsung’s lead in the foldable smartphone race
Exactly the situation of the tortoise and the hare
Samsung Galaxy Z Flip 6
The Galaxy Z Flip 6 is Samsung’s most advanced flip-style foldable form factor yet. The 3.4-inch AMOLED cover screen supports Galaxy AI features without unfolding the device, along with upgraded widgets and reply suggestions, but the beautiful 6.7-inch FHD+ AMOLED foldable display means you’ll be opening the phone more often.
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 6
Samsung’s latest foldable smartphone takes cues from the Galaxy S24 Ultra with a boxier design and matte finish, a slightly wider cover display for a more comfortable typing experience, and it also comes with new Galaxy AI features and an upgraded ultra-wide camera.
