Please smile

At the end of January, Google launched Google Clips, a camera that uses artificial intelligence to take a photo exactly when the opportunity is at its best. It recognizes the right moment and pulls the trigger. Google Clips - as the name suggests - is attached to the user's clothing. Like the Jordi watch Le Clip, but with intelligent inner workings. The events are continuously observed by the camera, and the relevant faces and actors are learned. Sooner or later Clips knows who plays a role in the owner's life and who is worth photographing. Not only babies and grandmas, but also pets. Machine learning for the perfect photo album - without lifting a finger.

The $249 gadget is only available in the US for now. Or rather it was. The Clips camera was in such high demand in the Google Store that it was only possible to get on a waiting list within a very short time.

Even if the idea of having to be permanently scanned and analyzed by an algorithm during a conversation and having every amused facial expression immortalized in the clip memory may seem repulsive to some people, and not just for reasons of data protection, the need to cede more and more demanding personal tasks to machines seems to exist and to be omnipresent. Photographing loved ones? Let's leave it to the smart machine, because it knows how to do it.

Whether technology will one day make human photographers superfluous and replace them remains to be seen. As is the case in all creative or emotional areas where, until recently, humans thought they were absolutely robot-proof.

Speaking of human photographers: With this issue, we bid farewell to Thomas "Tom" Stuckert. Over the past few years, he has photographed thousands of industry faces - probably including you - for our "Shortlist" (before relaunch) and "Who-is-Who" sections. After 14 years at Werbewoche, the passionate amateur photographer is setting out for new shores. When Tom wasn't taking pictures at events or networking, he was selling ads, marketing, setting up cooperations, presenting an optimistic solution to every problem, advising, supporting - or simply being a humorous, loyal work colleague who backed up the editorial team wherever possible. A team player through and through.

Tom has experienced many advertising week editorships. And one or two editors-in-chief. And one or two publishers. By way of comparison, when he started at Werbewoche, Alex Frei was spitting on Steven Gerrard at the European Championship in Portugal - if you still remember that. Human constants that have become rare in today's professional and, above all, media world.

We wish Tom Stuckert every success in his new challenge and all the best for the future. Where will he be moving to? You will read it in due course under "Jobchange". And as long as we can't finally hand over the job to Google, we'll pick up the camera ourselves again - thanks to human learning, we too usually pull the trigger at the right moment.

Thomas Häusermann, Editor-in-Chief a.i. Werbewoche