For the first time since her father’s tragic death eight years ago, CHERIE Bergman saw her father’s gaze and her eyes were red.
With just a tap on her phone, the Florida mom can watch him wink and smile from behind the screen, as if he was alive yesterday.
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MyHeritage uses deepfake technology to animate photos of relatives Credit: d-id
What really got 25-year-old Cherie back on her feet was that this wasn’t a rerun of an old video. It’s something different.
She has uploaded photos of her deceased parents to MyHeritage, an app that offers the opportunity to “wake up” the dead.
Using artificial intelligence, it can create short videos that breathe life into portrait subjects that are years or even centuries old.
The faces in the image are merged through a “driver” animation, making it appear as if the person is nodding, smiling, etc.
MyHeritage, which is based in Israel, admits that some people find the feature “creepy,” while others find it “magical.”
The technology rose to prominence after going viral last year, and has raised important questions about how far we can go with AI-altered video.
“I’m hysterical”
Cherie, a mother of five in Orlando, met Deep Nostalgia last March while browsing TikTok.
People are sharing videos in which the technology brings to life photos of historical figures who lived before the age of video, such as Winston Churchill or Queen Victoria.
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Cherie went viral after using the technology to change the image of her late father Credit: Handout
Others have uploaded their stunned reactions after using the technology to digitally resurrect dead relatives.
Cherie was inspired to try the tool herself using a photo of her father Rick, who died unexpectedly in 2013 at the age of 67.
The once still picture suddenly came to life, and Rick blinked at his surroundings as if he were right next to her.
Cherie was quick to show her mom, six sisters and anyone she could find.
“We were stunned,” she told The Sun. “Literally, it was like he was staring at us. We were hysterical.”
The stay-at-home mom posted a video of her reaction to Rick’s “reawakening” TikTok, which went viral.
In the 15-second clip, which garnered 5.5 million views, Cherie was visibly overwhelmed, covering her mouth with a hand in shock.
It then plays an animated video of Rick with the words: “After eight years I brought my dad back.”
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Florida mom says experience ‘made my heart whole again’ Credit: Handout
While Cherie’s twisted face could be mistaken for pain, she said her response was closer to happiness.
“It’s not a sad feeling,” she explained. “It was such a blissful feeling. It was like seeing him again.”
Another TikToker with deep nostalgia is Jake Larson, a 99-year-old U.S. military veteran who goes by the nickname “Papa Jake.”
After seeing the technology on social media, his granddaughter filmed his reaction to an animated photo of his late wife Lola.
The resulting video — which has garnered 39 million views on TikTok — shows him wiping away tears as he gets emotional.
“Holy smoke,” Dad Jack, who fought in the Normandy invasion in 1944, says in the video. “She’s alive. I can’t believe it.”
Lola died 32 years ago, and the images used in the video were taken for her high school graduation.
She was married to Dad Jack for nearly six years.
“When she smiled at me, there were tears in my eyes,” Jack, who has 470,000 TikTok followers, said of seeing the video for the first time.
“It was like someone came down from the sky to bless me,” he told The Sun.
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Jack’s emotional reaction to an animated photo of his late wife Lola took the internet by storm last year
cute but creepy
MyHeritage’s namesake app offers a range of family history services, including DNA testing and the ability to trace your family tree.
However, by far its most popular tool is Deep Nostalgia. It was built by D-ID, a Tel Aviv company specializing in artificial intelligence video.
Since launching Deep Nostalgia in February 2021, MyHeritage says it has animated over 100 million photos.
In its viral heyday, it was the most downloaded app on the Apple App Store, processing thousands of faces per hour.
When a client uploads a photo, Deep Nostalgia zooms in on the subject’s face and enhances it.
AI merges the face with a brief recorded video of a person moving their head and blinking their eyes.
It can even add bits. If your great-grandmother kept her mouth shut in a photo, Deep Nostalgia will give her a toothy grin.
The result, MyHeritage says, is “a realistic picture of how a person might move and look if they were caught on video”.
Each clip is a so-called “deepfake,” an existing photo or video manipulated using AI to create a realistic but completely fake event.
Deepfakes have sparked a lot of controversy since their appearance in 2017, and things are likely to become more controversial as the technology improves.
artificial intelligence explained
Here’s what you need to know
- Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, is a type of computer software
- Usually, the computer will follow your instructions
- But artificial intelligence simulates the human mind and can make its own inferences, inferences or decisions
- A simple computer might let you set an alarm to wake you up
- But an AI system might scan your email, determine that you have a meeting tomorrow, then set an alert and plan a trip for you
- AI technology is often “trained” – meaning it observes something (maybe even a human being) and then learns a task over time
- For example, an artificial intelligence system can input thousands of photos of faces and then generate photos of faces on its own.
- Some experts fear humans will eventually lose control of superintelligent AI
- But the tech community is still divided on whether AI technology will finally kill us all in a Terminator-style apocalypse
They have been used to create fake celebrity sex tapes and misleading videos of politicians saying things they never said.
Deep Nostalgia is apparently a relatively harmless version of the technology, and it’s hard to see how it could be abused.
However, questions have been raised about how far forward should be allowed.
Last year, MyHeritage said it deliberately didn’t include voice in features “to prevent abuse, such as creating deepfake videos of living people.”
In March, it reversed that decision, introducing the ability for resurrected faces to speak in a robotic voice that mimics user-supplied text.
Sarah Vanunu, public relations director at MyHeritage, admitted to The Sun that the app had no tools to prevent abuse.
Instead, the company relies on people who choose to use its services responsibly.
“You should use that feature on photos you own, not photos featuring living people without their permission,” Vanunu said.
“It’s part of the terms and conditions that people should read before doing anything else.”
Dangerous trend?
According to experts, technologies such as Deep Nostalgia raise important questions for the future.
Sam Gregory, a leading voice on deepfakes and human rights, said clear consent rules will be more important than ever as video becomes harder to distinguish from real footage.
“AI-generated deepfakes are improving rapidly,” he told The Sun.
“Many companies are rolling out ways to put words into the mouths of digital avatars or filmed real people, allowing them to say things they’ve never said before.
“It’s important to have rules around consent and flagging deepfakes so we’re not easily fooled when there is malicious use.”
Of course, the potential advantages of this technology cannot be ignored. For someone like Cherie, deepfakes provide a level of closure after the death of someone they hold dear.
“When Dad died, he wasn’t in Costa Rica,” she said. “He was completely alone in a country far from home.
“Bring this picture to life and make our hearts whole again.”
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