Excellent work. Next time try CoPilot AI, upload the photo and ask it to remove the two cars. It would've taken only minutes.

I just have, and it's quite extraordinary -


Its guess as to what was behind the cars isn't quite accurate, but it's amazing nonetheless. Thanks very much for making me aware of the wonders of AI.

The hundreds of scenes which I could have taken over the years but didn't because they were spoiled by parked vehicles!

You'll have to buy a telly now, with nothing else to do in the evenings.
The colours are also much better.

The latest AI-created version -
One just uploads any picture to CoPilot AI and it immediately recognises what it's of, in this case "A classic village scene with cottages and church tower" and asks, in a very conversational way what changes one would like. After it had removed the cars it suggested it add a wintry look, a snowman, falling snow and a figure - and within seconds it did all that. I only had to ask it to then add a dog, make the figure more distant and make its hat red. It works with you. It's impossible to believe that one isn't speaking with a human and one with an even better artistic eye than one's own.

CoPilot AI is free and I suggest you try it. As a start, upload one of your village shots with a parked cars in it, and ask it to remove it and the other eyesores which we both deplore. You'll be as astonished as I.

I note what you suggest that I now do in the evenings, but there's a serious side to this. If anyone with a smartphone and using CoPilot AI (or ChatGDP etc.) can now produce photographs equal or better than we do after years of practice and experience, it's a little unsettling. But that applies to the many other applications and professions (legal, admin., accountancy etc.) and the training and knowledge which has until now been needed for them, which AI is likely to make redundant. I can suddenly see that that's a very realistic possibility.

The dog is adorable and really makes the picture, though I'm not so keen on the expansion of the church tower, which now looks more like a castle. I'm also wondering how those kids got away with building a snowman in the middle of the road.

I've been using CoPilot for months now, mainly for exploring neurology or to help with my book. I don't like his writing style, and usually ignore his suggested changes to my text, but he's very useful for fact checking and spotting typos, as well as checking the safety of my fictional names.

I haven't tried him on photo editing yet.

Wonders haven't ceased.

East Hagbourne, taken in March 2022:



Top: The original, unedited image. Middle: After a lengthy session in 2022 in PhotoShop to remove the eyesores. Bottom: After just now asking CoPilot AI (which immediately recognised it as "An English village with Tudor-style buildings and a thatched barn") to do the same, which it did in seconds.

As I said, I now regret the dozens (hundreds?) of pictures I would now have in my portfolio which I never took because the rubbish from them would, I thought to myself, "be too much work" to remove. But who ever anticipated AI?

It looks like (as though) he's also better at natural skies.

I've just tried him with the following picture, but he straightened out the irregular timber frame, altered the doors, and added an invented bricked-up window. So not an authentic shot.

Let's see it.

Since you know what is grammatical English, why not leave out the "like" and the parentheses and just say "It looks as if"?

This is one of many attempts. See how he's altered the doors, and the lefthand window.

And extended the LH building westwards. Curious about that window. I'm not overly-concerned about authenticity but agree that all the arbitrary straightening and stretching has made it a very bland and uninteresting picture. Perhaps I got over-excited about the benefits of AI.

But I'm glad that CoPilot is able to help you with the book (and that the book hasn't been abandoned) and hope that he at least understands and respects the rules of grammar which your erstwhile mentor saw fit to ignore at will and to laugh at anyone who objected.

Copilot does produce some beautiful scenes when you ask him to create something from scratch, but there's almost always something wrong with them. For example, a night scene with two moons, or a cafe scene with someone's head on back to front.

See the mistakes on his St George's Day card.



There are plenty of 'likes' in my book, as it's intentionally written in a colloquial style, to convey the authentic voice of the narrator. Other than that, the grammar is fairly acceptable, although I do start sentences with 'and' and 'but', which my teacher told us we should never do, and there are/is the odd few sentences with no verb. The important thing is not to be too stilted.

Who is this 'erstwhile mentor' you speak of?

1. It is not ungrammatical to start a sentence with 'and' or 'but'. (Most sentences in the King James Bible start with 'And').

2. Some (quasi-) academic or writing coach you had, the one who advocated using the plural 'they' with a singular subject, and laughed when you told him that you had a contact who hated that usage. That, to me, set his judgement of what is good writing at naught.

2. Good writing is suely writing that conveys its meaning well whilst retaining the reader's interest. If I were to use a lot of he/she, I'm sure it would be very boring.

Good writing (as you define it) and grammatical English are not always exactly the same, I accept.

To keep saying "he or she", "him or her" and "his or her" is very tedious for both writer and reader, I agree, but in most cases the masculine pronoun alone is sufficient, and implies the feminine as well - "Everyone to his own way". www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmeyG5LlFWU

Good writing is suely when used by lawyers in litigation.