Deep Nostalgia, a tool from the genealogy company MyHeritage, turns static photos into animated videos, contributing to the global debate around deepfake technologies
By Umberto Bacchi
February 26 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) – Just like the animated paintings that adorn the walls of the Harry Potter school, a new online tool promises to bring portraits of dead relatives to life, sparking debates over the use of technology to pass for people.
The genealogy company MyHeritage launched its “Deep Nostalgia” feature earlier this week, allowing users to turn photos into short videos showing the person in the photo smiling, winking and nodding.
“Watching the faces of our beloved ancestors come to life … allows us to imagine what they might have looked like in reality and provides a new and profound way to connect with our family history,” said MyHeritage founder Gilad Japhet in a communicated.
Developed with Israeli computer vision company D-ID, Deep Nostalgia uses deep learning algorithms to animate images with facial expressions that were based on those of MyHeritage employees.
Some users of the company accessed Twitter on Friday to share animated images of their deceased relatives, as well as touching depictions of historical figures, including Albert Einstein and the lost Queen Nefertiti of Ancient Egypt.
“It’s breathtaking. This is my grandfather, who died when I was eight. @MyHeritage brought him back to life. Absolutely crazy,” wrote Twitter user Jenny Hawran.
While the majority expressed surprise, others described the feature as “scary” and said it raised ethical issues. “The photos are enough. The dead have no opinion about that,” tweeted user Erica Cervini.
From chatbots to virtual reality, the tool is the latest innovation that seeks to bring the dead to life through technology.
Last year, rapper Kanye West of the United States gave his wife Kim Kardashian a hologram of his late father, congratulating her on her birthday and marrying “the most, most, most, most genius man in the world”.
‘ANIMATING THE PAST’
The trend opened up all sorts of ethical and legal issues, particularly around consent and the opportunity to confuse reality by recreating a virtual copy of the living.
Elaine Kasket, professor of psychology at the University of Wolverhampton, UK, who wrote a book on “digital life after death”, said that while Deep Nostalgia is not necessarily “problematic”, it is “at the top of a slope slippery “.
“When people start to overwrite history or kind of liven up the past … you wonder where it ends,” she said.
MyHeritage recognizes on its website that the technology may be “a little strange” and its use “controversial”, but measures mentioned have been taken to prevent abuse.
“The Deep Nostalgia feature includes coded animations that are intentionally speechless and therefore cannot be used to falsify any content or deliver any message,” said MyHeritage director of public relations Rafi Mendelsohn in a statement.
However, the images alone can convey meaning, said Faheem Hussain, a clinical assistant professor at the School for the Future of Society Innovation at Arizona State University.
“Imagine that someone took a picture of the Last Supper and Judas is winking at Mary Magdalene – what kind of implications that could have,” Hussain told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by phone.
Likewise, Artificial Intelligence (AI) animations can be used to make someone appear to be doing things they cannot be happy with, such as rolling their eyes or smiling at a funeral, he added.
MyHeritage’s Mendelsohn said that using photos of a living person without their consent was a violation of the company’s terms and conditions, adding that the videos were clearly marked with AI symbols to differentiate them from authentic recordings.
“It is our ethical responsibility to clearly mark these synthetic videos and differentiate them from real videos,” he said.
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(Reporting by Umberto Bacchi @UmbertoBacchi in Milan; Editing by Helen Popper. Credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Thomson Reuters charity arm, which covers the lives of people around the world who struggle to live with freedom or justice. Visit http: / /news.trust.org)
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