Artificial intelligence and camera firmware

The folks at Lirpa Labs, the research arm of Sloof Lirpa, made a big announcement today. It’s a first for the company, which has previously developed standalone products. Lirpa will be providing firmware upgrades for Sony, Canon, Nikon, Leica, Hasselblad, and Fujifilm cameras. The Lirpa firmware will add entirely new artificial intelligence capabilities to those cameras, with the objective of improving the esthetics of the images made.

One of the beauties of the new firmware is the simplicity of the user interface. There is no on/off control; the AI features remain active all the time. There are no parameters to set; the firmware is designed well enough that it needs no tuning by the user. When the photographer depresses the shutter release, the camera analyses the scene, and decides if it’s up to snuff. If it is, the shutter is released. If not, the camera displays messages in the finder like:

• Sorry, that ain’t gonna cut it.
• Close, but you’re not getting the cigar.
• Nice try, bozo.
• You’ve got to be kidding
• You call yourself a photographer?
• Not happening.
• That sucks.

Note that the camera gives the photographer no indication of what they are doing wrong. This is a conscious decision on the part of the design tem, intended to encourage deep learning on the part of the wetware behind the camera (that’s you!), as well as in the firmware inside the camera. The photographer is forced to try different framings, aperture and shutter speed settings, camera positioning, lens selection, and the like before the camera will let the image be captured. This trial and error behavior on the part of the photographer, sometimes under time pressure, serves to implant the lessons learned in memory, making it less likely that the photographer will repeat the error.

There’s also a motivation for the photographer to practice. The very real possibility of the camera’s refusing to make images at a once-in-a-lifetime event means that the photographer is highly incentivized to do dry runs under every conceivable anticipated situation. As further motivation, to give the photographer time to contemplate their sins, the camera will refuse to take any pictures for an hour after 12 bad attempts in a row.

There is one matter that has concerned the Lirpa Labs development team. Many of the beta test cameras suffered mechanical damage during the trial phase. The development team was unable to ascertain the reasons for that. Much of the damage seemed to be the result of impact, as if the cameras had been thrown to the ground or against a wall. In the absence of understanding the root cause of the damage, the team has decided to ship each firmware upgrade with a sturdy plastic shock-absorbing case specific to each camera model for which the firmware was written.

There is no reversing course; once the AI firmware is installed, it cannot be removed, only upgraded as Lirpa releases new versions.

Thanks to the geniuses at Lirpa Labs, we can expect the quality of our photographs to improve immeasurably.