A new application can animate old photos. But there is nothing human about artificial intelligence

A new application can animate old photos. But there is nothing human about artificial intelligence

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As for AI animated images, the technology behind these Harry Potter-like photos is not particularly complex.

Users are invited to provide old photos of their loved ones, and the program uses deep learning to apply predetermined movements to their facial features. It also compensates with moments that do not appear in the original photo, such as revealing teeth or the side of the head. Together, it creates, if not a completely natural effect, as a deeply arresting effect.

Answers to the Deep Nostalgia images – tears when we see a grandmother’s smile, a terrifying sense of connection to a long dead historical icon – knock on a mysterious emotional wall between us and this type of rapidly evolving technology.

We rely on perception and emotion

“The drawing of this is that visual images are complex and compelling and that we respond to them,” said Hany Farid, co-dean and principal of the School of Information to UC Berkeley. “We are visual beings. When you see your grandmother or Mark Twain come to life, there is something fascinating about it.”

Fascinating – and yes, a little scary.

Our brains, as sophisticated as they are, have a prehistoric response to things that are almost human, but not entirely. It is commonly called the strange valley, and many deep fakes and AI-driven image manipulations allow this ancient alarm clock. Even MyHeritage addresses this response in their outline of the program.

“Indeed, the results can be controversial and it is difficult to remain indifferent to this technology,” reads their FAQ page.

If it’s a beloved family member occupying that virtually-but-not-completely-space in reality, the parts of our brain that pose love and fear against each other, even though we know full well that what we’re looking at are not real .

“The way our brains process images of humans is different from inanimate objects. It affects neural circuits,” says Farid. “For years we have been able to synthesize inanimate objects, and this completely misleads the visual system because we do not have preconceived ideas about how they move. But when it comes to humans, it is lingering. Part of it is the subtle way we move and recognize these movements. ‘

“My sense of wonder may have been colored with a sense of horror” said La Marr Jurelle Bruce, a professor at the University of Maryland, who shared the animated image of Frederick Douglass and caught the attention of hundreds of thousands of people online.

AI relies on data and rules

Deepfakes, which is a sophisticated combination of synthetic sound and images, has been a point of contention for digital ethicists for years, especially when it comes to issues such as altered pornography and fake videos that could threaten national and financial institutions.
For a more positive application, businesses have increasingly turned to the technology to create widely customizable advertising campaigns. According to experts, the payoff is that the consumer can feel more attached to a brand or product by seeing which way it would fit into their lives – on a model with similar proportions, in their own language or in a micro- targeted advertising that speaks to their interests.

This type of application has a similar kind of human connection to Deep Nostalgia. But the fact is that there is nothing human about artificial intelligence.

Farid is careful to point out that machine learning, which is what drives more available animation technologies like Deep Nostalgia, is a field in the larger world of artificial intelligence. Machine learns pores about data and finds patterns. Although a program can be improved with more input, there is no intelligence or analysis involved in applying these patterns.

There are many applications that benefit greatly from this type of data.

“If you predict the stock market, you want patterns,” Farid offers as an example. “Or to do cancer diagnoses. I do not have to understand at the moment why cancer arises, I just want to know if it does happen.”

When applied to more human activities, the lack of, well, intelligence appears.

The smiling faces of our ancestors, though touching, obviously do not hold up once we have given up our suspension of unbelief.

AI-generated versions of human faces, another threat to the security of our online environment, often contain hilarious bugs where a program, not quite sure what to do with irregular things like ears or glasses, spews out small monsters that hidden in otherwise compelling visions.
Even extremely sophisticated, true deep fakes like the one Tom Cruise’s extensive currently airing often have small contradictions that we second guess about our own sense of reality.

However, these inconsistencies will diminish as technology evolves, and Farid says the time has come for companies to look critically at their ethical implications.

“The technology sector has done things because it can and not because it has to,” he says. “We need to stop building things because it’s cool and start asking these difficult questions before it’s too late.”

Previously, technology says, it becomes so good that our emotions are able to dominate our keen senses of perception.

When using Deep Nostalgia, MyHeritage warns users to upload photos of live people without their permission, and states that the company did not add audio options for the sake of user safety.

In the future, another program may be able to fill in these gaps, and we may see, hear, and talk to those we have long lost. Such technology presents incredible challenges to our safety and our sense of reality as we know it.

But if it smiles at us through the comforting faces of our loved ones, it will be much harder to resist.

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