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MIT’s new tool erases anything (or anyone) from old photos

By Mark Wilson

We’re all guilty of the Crop. You know, that group photo where you look so good that—sorry bestie, apologies grandma, see ya, ex—you carefully crop the other person out.

But what if there was a tool that could erase people and things automatically—a magic wand that could do hours of imperfect Photoshop work in an instant? Now, thanks to an MIT Media Lab project led by Matt Groh, that tool is real—if still imperfect.

Dubbed Deep Angel, it’s an AI that lives inside a simple-to-use website, which will scan photos you upload, or even your Instagram feed, for people, dogs, cats, snowboards, bowls, buses, traffic lights, pizzas, and teddy bears, to name a few, and automatically erase those things from your photos, according to your wishes. 

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