This doesn't guarantee that new phones or camera apps will take Pixel 2-quality portraits, although it does open that possibility. And really, phone photos aren't the point. Google researchers are hoping that both academics and industry figures will use the source code to not only improve on the technology, but find uses that Google hasn't anticipated. This could be used for object detection and many other tasks where spotting boundaries could come in handy.

Update: Google has since issued an update clarifying that this isn't the technology from the Pixel 2. It could, however, produce results similar to those of the Pixel 2. We've updated our story accordingly.