You're listening to Roundtable, I'm Naomi Hong -lin joined by Steve and Yu Shen coming up.
Have you ever wished you could take stunning wedding photos in a dream location without the hassle of traveling?
AI -powered photo generators now make that possible and it's taking over social media in China.
But with these innovative tools raising eyebrows, are we losing the magic of traditional photography?
Picture this, you and your partners are gazing lovingly at each other, framed by the golden sunset on a tropical beach.
You look amazing, the waves are perfect.
And wait, none of this actually happened?
I don't know. Welcome to the age of AI -generated wedding photos.
I was lost in a moment there, Yu Shen.
By the way, nice prompts.
Oh yes. I was back on vacation for just a brief moment.
And that didn't happen.
It's all in your brain.
Wait, it's not in your brain, it's in your phone.
You can use artificial intelligence generated or AI -aided machines or apps or whatever in your phone to fabricate basically anything you want and it's turning into an industry.
So yeah, this is what's basically happening.
Is there any detail that we need to know about this very special industry?
So because many young people are now opting for this kind of new style of wedding photography, they don't need to do any clothing, makeup, or even going anywhere.
They can just at home and...
Sit on the sofa in their underwear and create their wedding photos.
Just like when you were traveling in Hawaii.
It is heatedly discussed on social media platform like Red or Sha Hong Shu and on Douing, the Chinese Tik Tok.
The topic of AI wedding photos has accumulated over 450 million views.
Ooh, hot issue. They are loving this.
Yeah, right. Loving it or I guess against it, depending on your opinion.
Or at least talking about it.
Yeah, right. The thing is that there are many AI tools available now and most tools for generating wedding photos are text -to -image generations.
So we can imagine that just like New Orleans said, with all of these amazing inputs or prompts and then maybe also something like Beautiful Bride, Handsome Groom in this picture and then along with specific scene or description styles and photo parameters into the software or this AI platform, then
you can get whatever you want.
So you put in the prompts, Beautiful Bride, Handsome Groom...
And a little bit of your own profile, a little bit of your own picture.
Yes, maybe you need to replace your face with your...
So the image gets generated first and then you replace that with your own face and body.
Well, actually, I have to confess, I didn't actually use this to do a wedding photo, but I do have some photo generated by these AI apps with my face.
Oh really? Whoa, actual users.
Actual users happening.
Okay, so tell us all about it then.
So the concept or the process are similar here.
That is, you need to input some of your pictures, the ones that you seem fit into the apps.
And the more pictures you put in, basically the more data the app would get, the more precise your face would appear on another person's body.
Well, that's basically what is happening.
So what I did was to put in around 40, more than 40 of my 40 photos and they want you to...
Yes, to put in the ones...
They have specific needs.
For example, you have to have a forefront face and you have to be smiling.
Sometimes they prefer not to smile and you also give them different angles.
And preferably your face sometimes is not covered by hair.
Sometimes they want it to be a little bit, a specific angle, a specific facial expression.
It sounds like going to a photo studio.
Yes, it sounds so mature.
But the thing is you do that once and for all.
After you put in your personal info, the app would be able to generate pictures based on one time photo shooting and generate you in a different setting with different visual expressions with different angles.
And that's probably it.
Obviously, there are demands and there are business opportunities.
So in China, there are now both online and offline platform focused on using A .I.
to create wedding photos or just photos.
So online shopping platforms like Taobao and DMPing, prices for these services range from 9 .9 to 100 yuan.
That's about like one point five dollars to maybe 20 dollars.
Twenty dollars, yes.
I wonder why the difference in price, because that's quite a large difference, isn't it?
Dollar fifty to twenty dollars.
I think the cheap one, I think, are the ones that you just input some easy pictures of yourselves.
And then there are some certain frames that it will create for you.
And the number of these frames are limited.
And I think before talking into the question of whether or not you would like to make your wedding photo using this technology, one thing I need to specify here is that when it comes to wedding photos here in China, maybe you're for those of you who are not living in China and not familiar with the culture
here, we're not talking about the photo that you take at your weddings because that's the understanding of wedding photos for many people in the Western world.
You hire a professional photographer and you start your wedding.
You have fun with your friends and you have the professional photographers grasping those moments.
Yeah, they're just kind of there at the event.
And they take pictures as they see fit and then some organized pictures, too.
And yes, we do have those kind of wedding photos as well.
But for a lot of young couples, or just couples here in China, the wedding photo, we're talking about the kind of photos that you take in advance before the wedding that can be showcased on the wedding, showcased in the form of a video, in the form of basically just a photo story, talking about how
you fell in love with each other and showcasing it before the wedding starts.
So this is done at a...
traditionally, this is done at a professional studio where you go together, the bride and groom go together, and then you wear a tuxedo if that's your choice.
If that's your choice, you can wear a tuxedo, you can even choose traditional Chinese clothing, you can even choose traditional European clothing if you want.
And then the bride would dress up in a wedding dress, or again, whatever she chose.
Whatever she chose.
That is not necessarily the clothing you will wear at your wedding, is that correct?
Usually not. And sometimes you will be taken out of the studio to a very beautiful garden, to on top of a traditional wall in Xi 'an wearing red dress, being looked around by strangers and wanting to take your photo, and you say no to them, and you would...
That sounds quite personal, this story.
I'm exhausted. Yes, that was my experience.
I went to Xi 'an to do my wedding photo, and I have to say I wish, I wish I had done it with the help of AI, because it was it was a fun experience, to be honest.
It's something you do.
It's like your wedding is like a huge project, the first huge project you do with your husband with your significant other and wedding photo is part of it.
But other than that, I think gradually or at least personally, I feel like taking a photo is about capturing the memorable moments and these kind of shooting, these kind of having someone telling you what to wear, having someone doing your makeup and everything and telling you what poster you should be
posing, what facial expression you should be having, how much you should tilt your head a little bit to what angle.
That is not necessarily the kind of experience that everyone would want.
And if you want the final product without the process, maybe artificial intelligence is the way to help.
There's a news, a global photography news website called FStoppers, and they talk about the fact that AI functions are being used in wedding photography, mostly for post processing and image quality enhancement rather than to replace traditional photography altogether.
But from that same website, they talked about the fact that AI is already being used in photography, it's being used in newer cameras and image recognition.
Image recognition allows the camera to identify subjects within the frame and then that can help out with things like, I don't know, autofocus and exposure and things like that.
But they also say the art of photography is inherently human.
It's about capturing moments and emotions and telling stories and creating a connection between the viewer and the subject.
And there's a big question in the photography community about whether AI will replace photographers altogether.
The answer seems to be no, it's a tool that can assist professional photographers, but it's not going to replace photographers altogether.
They also referenced, which I thought was really interesting, you know, SLR, digital SLR cameras.
When those came out, there was this big panic in the photography community like oh my gosh, everybody is going to be able to be a pro now, and that just wasn't the case.
So they assume that AI in photography will enhance what professionals can already do.
It'll just help them to do or help them to use their skills even better.
But at the same time, I feel like the problem might be caused by AI photography is not rooted with AI photography.
It's rooted with Photoshop.
I think photoshopping is changing people's perception about beauty, changing people's perception about what should we look like.
Because if you do not have photoshopping, if you are only really just taking a picture with a film or something, then you look exactly who you are.
You can do makeup, you can do different lighting, but you're still who you are.
But with photoshopping, you can change it quite significantly.
And with that kind of significance and with all of those photoshopped pictures in your film, you would gradually lose track of how you look like.
I'm not talking about anybody else.
I'm talking about myself.
I have so much, so many of overly photoshopped pictures and AI generated pictures in my film.
You are not alone. That's what the world does.
And you know what I did?
This is a little bit ridiculous, but I would play this game with my two -year -olds.
I would show him pictures of myself, of my husband, of the kids' grandparents and everyone to show up because he doesn't get to see his grandparents all that often.
So I'll show the pictures to him and have him identify who's who, and I would, well, intentionally show him the overly photoshopped picture and tell him, see, this is mommy.
And now he looked at those AI generated pictures, he looked at the AI generated pictures and said, mommy, it's like brainwashing my kids.
Oh, my goodness. And my point is people are doing this intentionally or inattentionally, unintentionally quite a lot.
And when you look into a mirror, sometimes you feel like I am more beautiful than this.
Well, OK, so you bring up a good point, how people want to look.
Yes. But another good point that we didn't discuss yet is the cost, right?
Getting married is very expensive.
Taking wedding pictures is very expensive.
So if you can save a little bit of money on wedding pictures by doing it with the use of AI, then that can put a little bit more money towards your honeymoon or your actual wedding.
How much does it cost to get married in China?
Depends. Yeah, of course, it depends and it can be very expensive.
And also, I think that is one of the reasons that a lot of people are choosing AI wedding photos because they can just maybe they're spent like 10 to 20 yuan to get this AI subscription and then get very professional AI edited wedding photos.
And of course, wedding photography is quite expensive when we're seeing this, according to an industry report, during the 2018 to 2023, over 70 percent of newlyweds spent more than 5000 yuan.
That's about just for the pictures.
Just for that too much.
That's about seven hundred US dollars on wedding photography.
And as New Orleans just said, a lot of these money are paid on photo shopping.
Photo shopping? Yes, because not not just having a.
They're not OK. They're not, you know, giving you the raw pictures, actually, depending on different packages.
Yes. And then. Oh, yeah, right.
If you want that kind of a raw pictures, they will just be even more expensive.
So when you're thinking about the price of taking photos, taking a trip of taking the photos and then paying for photo shopping, that could be very pricey wedding photo as well.
So a lot of people are thinking about these kind of AI photo shopping or AI wedding photo as their choice because they're just taking pictures with maybe same devices, but just retouching with.
So my recommendation for those professional photographers actually is that instead of producing something that is overly photoshopped, that is quite standard, you're asking people to do the same poster, the same pose, every every couple to do the same thing and manufacturers, similar pictures that cannot really
compare to or compete with the AI generated one.
Be more genuine. Talk to the couple, take them to places, talk about their love stories so that they can show genuine facial expressions.
Go on a wall in G on in a red dress or do that because a stranger's name is more lively.
That would give you more impression and more memorable experience that you want to share a roundtable one day, maybe about your wedding photo experience.
And that would give you the edge to compete with AI.
And you are listening to Roundtable coming up next.
Ever feel like your day is running on an autopilot?
You check your phone, your schedule tells you where to go.
Your map app picks the route and suddenly every day feels like a rerun.
Sound familiar? Well, maybe it's time to break free from the routine, maybe injecting a little spontaneity into your day can return, can turn your life from predictable to exciting.
Ready to shake things up?
Don't go away. Looking for passion?
How about fiery debate?
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives?
Then tune in to Roundtable where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
It's Roundtable with myself, Neil Hong -Ling, Steve Hatterly, and Yuxuan.
Now I want to ask you this question.
When was the last time you did something completely unplanned?
Yuxuan? I think a lot of time, but the one that I can think of was my recent trip to Hong Kong and I spontaneously or randomly bumped into a park that is so good.
Oh, nice. I think that is the best part of my planned trip in Hong Kong.
Yeah, just walking around.
And I can say that, too, just walking around Beijing and, you know, seeing a little restaurant that looks quite delicious and then popping in for a bite to eat.
Yeah, I do that quite a bit.
Oh, what about you?
Anything? Other than food, travel, too.
But travel around my neighborhood, I mean, or within the city.
I don't spontaneously wake up and go to Thailand or something like that.
But my mother used to do that.
My mother is incredibly spontaneous and that's what we're talking about here, being more spontaneous.
Let's start with some numbers.
This is from the World Economic Forum.
By 2025, and this will not make sense immediately, but be patient.
I'll get to my point.
By 2025, it's estimated that 463 exabytes of data will be created each day globally.
That's a new word for me, exabyte.
If it's a new word for you, too, that's the equivalent of 212 ,765 ,957 DVDs per day.
That's how much data is going to be on the Internet.
You know what? Maybe exabytes is not that common term that we may face, but DVDs is also not going to be a common term now.
That's true. That's true.
Anyway, all that information is available to us.
All we have to do is search for it.
And search is exactly what we do.
This is from explodingtopics .com.
There are approximately 22 ,083 ,870 ,968 searches on Google every day.
Google processes 255 ,600 searches per second.
Now those numbers will vary a little bit depending on the outlet you're looking at.
But the point is that we search a lot.
And this isn't just background noise.
As research in decision -making psychology shows, this data onslaught influences our choices.
And it ironically narrows our paths.
And the point of that is to say that the scope for true spontaneous discovery, for stumbling into a park in Hong Kong, for stumbling into a restaurant on the side of a street that you didn't know existed, all of that seems to diminish every single day.
I don't understand.
I mean being able to research things to have more info and make a decision, a fully informed decision, seems like a good thing to me.
And I like making plans in advance.
I get it. I get what you're trying to say.
And it does seem ridiculous that the more information that's available to us is limiting our searches.
But let me explain it like this.
Let's say you're in the Chaoyang area of Beijing and you're hungry and you want to go for something to eat.
What do you do? You have two choices.
Number one, you can walk around Chaoyang and to look at all...
Chaoyang is huge. I'm not looking around in Chaoyang, but I get your point.
Walking around a little bit.
Walking around the downtown area a little bit until you find a restaurant that looks great.
That is completely spontaneous.
Or you can search on your phone.
Delicious restaurants in Chaoyang, Beijing, and that will give you a list of possibilities.
From that list of possibilities you will click on one and then you go.
Now, it seems like you've made that choice all on your own.
But have you? The internet gave you a very limited list of possibilities for you.
It told you essentially where to go and then you went and did it.
The argument here is that you did not make a spontaneous decision.
You searched on the internet for the number of exabytes in the number of exabytes and the internet essentially made the choice for you.
Yes, but if I walk around and I am hungry, I can only walk around for half an hour and my choices are still limited.
I was also thinking the same thing.
When you were just walking maybe on one floor of the shopping center, the choices are also limited.
And you can maybe get into one store and then you found it maybe interesting and then you get into it.
But you are making that choice all on your own depending on the street that you suddenly decided to walk down or the level of the shopping mall where you suddenly decided that you were hungry.
All of that decision making was up to you.
I think I'm not voting against spontaneity, but I find it quite anxious to think about I am making a uninformed decision.
I am thinking that if I am looking online, I would get more info.
I understand and I do agree that these info are fed to me by some major company or just the algorithm of the internet, of the computers and whatever.
Yet I still get to see the reveals of different people.
I still get to see the necessary info like whether or not they're using organic oil or something.
I still have a little bit of something to make my decision.
Based on, but with without all that, I think I am terminated by the sea or ocean information already.
I find myself getting panic, making a decision without all that.
You're talking. Well, there's two sides to that.
And you're talking about decision fatigue and from psychology today, they reference studies that show that an overreliance on digital recommendation.
So when you're searching the internet about which hotel to stay at or which which type of hot pot to try or anything, then that can lead to more fatigue, more stress, not less, because there are too many choices available.
It's like when you go to a family style restaurant and there's 200 items on the menu and you sit there for 25 minutes because you can't choose.
Well, that's what the Internet does.
That's the other side of this.
The Internet provides us with too much information and therefore it's stressful for us to make a choice.
Yeah, I actually can deeply resonate with this kind of idea.
You know, after reviewing many online recommendations or maybe itineraries, the things you actually see may not be as exciting as you thought.
That's also on the list of negative sides to the overload of information is that you already you've chosen your restaurant.
So by the time you get to the restaurant, you have high expectations.
But you're not as excited anymore because there's no big reveal kind of if that makes sense.
But you know, having no plan at all isn't a good experience either because I especially feel this in traveling.
If the trip has no plan, tend to feel anxious or the feeling of I might miss out on something.
Yeah, it's also wasting time because I'm not getting to the best.
Totally disagree with.
Totally disagree. Having a ten page itinerary for your vacation takes the fun out of the vacation because it's overly planned or that's how I feel.
But I know that that's not the case for many, many people out there.
It's really stressful if you don't have that information at your fingertips.
There's a there's a fear of a loss of authenticity as well when you choose items from the Internet when the Internet recommends to you.
It's saying or the theory is that you didn't make the selection on your own.
It's not a it's not a representation of you or your individuality or anything like that.
So this can be a negative side effect of that as well.
I think it all comes down to what kind of person you are in your daily life.
If you are overly planned for everything, if you have a list of things planning your every hour, what to do every day, then maybe you do need a little bit surprise element in your life.
And that's what they recommend.
They say that if you are one of these people who is always depending on the Internet to make your choices for you.
Plan and if you're a planner, plan some spontaneity.
Exactly. Right. So take a little window.
Yushin, you're a big planner when you go on vacation.
But how about this?
If you said, on this Wednesday morning of my vacation, between the hours of nine and nine a .m.
and one p .m., I'm not going to make a plan.
I'm just going to go out and see what happens.
Do you think that would be comfortable for you?
That's called micro spontaneity.
Yeah, I think that that could work.
And that is actually maybe taking baby steps by taking the spontaneity and also, you know, why people are thinking about taking spontaneity because we we from the age of, you know, spontaneously do everything because back then we don't have the Internet.
We can only go to the spots by ourselves without any recommendations.
And now we have all of these Internet and we can get people's recommendation and maybe they're good suggestions.
So I think maybe a mixture of all of these things could be a good way to do it.
Try it out and report back.
Yes, and I am actually sold because in our everyday life, in your job, you already have to plan everything.
And in your vacations, maybe a little bit of spontaneity would help you feel more relaxed.
And that brings us to the end of today's roundtable until next time.
Keep the conversations going and the ideas flowing.
I'm Yohong Lin with Steve and Yuxin.
Thanks for listening.
Bye bye, everyone.
