[A new technology from the genealogy company MyHeritage not only enhances and colorizes photos but animates faces to seemingly bring people to life, raising many interesting questions about the ethics and evolution of presence. This story is from Gizmodo, where the original includes several examples of what the new Deep Nostalgia feature can do. A press release on the day it launched (February 25) is available from Business Wire, and a blog post on the MyHeritage website features many user reactions after noting that “Over 1 million photos were animated in the first 48 hours alone. Today we expect to pass the 3 million milestone.” PC Magazine’s story includes this reaction (while noting an earlier MyHeritage data breach): “The AI-powered results can be arresting. Seeing a loved one’s face speaking looking at you once more, smiling and emoting, is an emotional experience. So is seeing a long-lost ancestor you didn’t even know you were related to.”
The company seems aware of the potential controversies the new technology will generate; here’s a question and answer in the FAQ on its website:
Q. This technology is fascinating but a bit uncanny, don’t you think?
A. Some people love the Deep Nostalgia™ feature and consider it magical, while others find it creepy and dislike it. Indeed, the results can be controversial and it’s hard to stay indifferent to this technology. We invite you to create videos using this feature and share them on social media to see what your friends and family think. This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring beloved ancestors back to life. Our driver videos don’t include speech in order to prevent abuse of this, such as the creation of ‘deep fake’ videos of living people. Please use this feature on your own historical photos and not on photos featuring living people without their permission.”
–Matthew]
‘Deep Nostalgia’ Can Turn Old Photos of Your Relatives Into Moving Videos
By Andrew Liszewski, Senior Staff Reporter
February 26, 2021
It’s hard to feel connected to someone who’s gone through a static photo. So a company called MyHeritage who provides automatic AI-powered photo enhancements is now offering a new service that can animate people in old photos creating a short video that looks like it was recorded while they posed and prepped for the portrait.
Called Deep Nostalgia, the resulting videos are reminiscent of the Live Photos feature in iOS and iPadOS where several seconds of video are recorded and saved before and after the camera app’s shutter is pressed. But where Live Photos is intended to be used to find the perfect shot and framing that may have been missed the exact second the shutter was pressed, Deep Nostalgia is instead meant to bring still shots, even those not captured on a modern smartphone, to life.
The conversion process is completely automated. Users simply need to upload a photograph through the MyHeritage website where it’s first sharpened and enhanced to not only improve the quality of the final animation but to also make it easier for the deep learning algorithm (created by a company called D-ID) to do its thing. The orientation of the person in the photo is analyzed to determine the direction of their head and eyes are looking, and then a matching driver video—a modern recording of a face making movements as if it were posing for a photo—is selected to guide how the photo is animated.
The results are eerily lifelike, and manage to preserve the aesthetics of the original shot to help sell the effect of this video being recorded when the actual photo was captured. Deep Nostalgia does have some limitations, however. In a photo with multiple subjects, users are asked to select just a single person they want to see animated because the tool, at least in its current form, can’t bring the entire shot to life. The animations are also limited to the subject’s head and neck. If it’s a shot of them playing tennis, you’re not going to see them taking a swing at the ball.
The MyHeritage website does require users to sign up before they can use Deep Nostalgia. But once that’s done, you can animate up to five different photos for free. After that, you’ll need to pay for a subscription to bring other friends and family back to life. Is it a little creepy? Yes, but at the same time, it’s another fascinating application of AI and deep learning that feels straight out of science fiction. And while the service is limited today, it’s not going to be long before AI is going to be able to bring an entire photo to life, so a static moment at your grandparents’ wedding could easily become another family home video.