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Snapchat is taking another step into generative AI, with its new "Imagine" Lens, which enables users to recreate images from the Snap camera or their camera roll using text prompts.

"Today we're introducing the Imagine Lens, our first Open Prompt Image Generation Lens. With the Imagine Lens, Snapchatters can create, edit, and recreate Snaps simply by entering their own prompts, then seamlessly share them with friends, post to their Story, or outside of Snapchat."

So it's different from Snap's Dreams Lens, which it launched back in 2023, in that this process enables you to enter in a description for your AI generation. Dreams comes up with alternative scenarios for your image, but you don't have the capacity to enter them yourself.

So it's a new (for Snap) generative AI process, that will enable Snapchat users to reimagine themselves in totally different contexts.

Why? I don't know, but social media apps seem convinced that people really want to create images of themselves as astronauts, or cowboys, or whatever else, even in an app like Snap, which is more focused on direct interaction with friends.

Like, I get it from a novelty perspective, in creating crazy images of yourself from some alternative universe. But they're not actually real, these are not actual, real depictions of things that you've personally done or experienced, and as such, it seems like a less relevant, less social option in many respects.

The usage data will bear this out either way, but creating fake, AI-generated images of yourself seems like such a minor interest, a lesser function of "social" tools, which enable us to share our perspective on the human experience.

These images are not human, nor are they sharing your perspective. So why do it?

Then again, because this is an open prompt option, enabling you to do anything you like, there are some more social things that you can do with it, like trying out a new hairstyle, or a Halloween outfit (kind of):

So it's not like this is all ridiculous, crazy, reimagined scenarios that don't, and can't exist, and maybe that's a better focus for this tool, as opposed to wholly re-creating your selfies.