Deep Nostalgia, a new service from genealogy website MyHeritage that animates old family photos, has gone viral on social media, in another example of how AI-based image manipulation is becoming increasingly mainstream.
The service, launched in late February, uses an AI technique called deep learning to automatically animate faces on photos uploaded to the system. Due to the ease of use and the free trial, it started quickly on Twitter, where users upload animated versions of old family photos, celebrity photos and even drawings and illustrations.
Like most “deepfakes” – the name for the popular use of this technology to map the face of one person on footage of another – the service is exceptionally good at animating functions and expressions smoothly. But it can also struggle to generate data to fill in the “gaps” it can see on the source photos, causing a sense of alienation.
“Some people like the Deep Nostalgia feature and consider it magical, while others find it creepy and dislike it,” says MyHeritage about its technology. ‘The results can indeed be controversial and it’s hard to remain indifferent to this technology. This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring beloved ancestors back to life. Our driver videos do not contain speech to prevent abuse, such as creating ‘deep fake’ videos of live people. ”
Not every video created with the service is naturally animated or of course good enough to be upsetting. For example, an animated version of Ronaldo’s infamous bust is just as disturbing as the static version:
Three years ago, producing a 15-second face-to-face exchange between Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher took the Guardian several hours on a powerful computer. The same effect can now be done for free with a mobile phone and apps like Snapchat, or given away for free as a promotion for a genealogical website.
And while the self-produced videos of Deep Nostalgia are unlikely to mislead anyone into thinking they are real footage, it can be very difficult to distinguish the same technology from reality.
Tom Cruise seems to be a particular choice: in 2019, a video clip went viral of comedian Bill Hader turning into the Hollywood star when he made an impression on David Letterman’s performance.
Last month, a new TikTok account called deeptomcruise garnered millions of views with a series of videos that are said to be the most fake version of the actor talking to the camera. The Cruise forgeries are so accurate that many programs designed to recognize manipulated media cannot detect them.