Android users can now use conversational editing in Google Photos

Pop‑culture framing & UX metaphors

• Many joked about the Blade Runner “enhance” scene and similar tropes, contrasting its precise, stepwise commands with today’s vague AI prompting.
• Several argue that scene illustrates a good tool: deterministic, explicit, feature‑discoverable, versus modern conversational UIs where users must guess capabilities and “magic words,” likened to old text‑adventure games.

Perceived usefulness & real use cases

• Some welcome being able to say things like “remove the shadow from this image” instead of fighting with lasso tools or being pushed into full generative edits.
• A few describe positive experiences with “vibe editing,” such as turning photos into cartoons or cards for relatives.
• Others insist photos should capture reality, not “variations of the moment,” and worry about looking back on heavily edited images as false memories.

Conversational AI & interaction concerns

• Clarification that “conversational” means natural‑language text, not voice, but some still find the whole idea awkward for precise editing.
• Critics worry that prompts are opaque, hard to discover, and may change more than intended, unlike traditional tools like brushes, layers, or explicit transforms.

AI overreach, regressions & enshittification

• Strong sentiment that Google Photos has become an AI playground, with rushed features bolted on at the expense of core UX.
• Multiple reports of removed or degraded tools: perspective/keystone correction, local Magic Eraser, worse crop UI, smaller preview, and inability to re‑edit previously edited photos.
• Users describe Google‑wide and industry‑wide “AI everywhere” pressure (similar complaints about Windows Copilot and retail sites), driven more by metrics and investor narratives than user needs.

Privacy, storage, and lock‑in

• Concerns that edits require a Google account and cloud upload; some prefer devices with more on‑device processing or restrict Photos’ network access.
• Suspicion that generative variants inflate storage usage and nudge upgrades; others doubt this is economically significant and see it mainly as a competitive feature push.
• Worry that Google may eventually train on personal photo libraries, prompting some to migrate off Photos pre‑emptively.

Alternatives & self‑hosting

• Immich, Ente, and Nextcloud Memories are repeatedly mentioned as alternatives, with discussion of import tools, HDR/video support, encryption, VPS trust, VPNs (Tailscale/WireGuard/ZeroTier), and the trade‑offs between self‑hosting complexity and privacy.