[LeatherTrumpet]

Deep Nostalgia

A new tool on ancestry website MyHeritage, that allows people to create
deepfake videos of their deceased relatives is dividing opinion.

Youtube video

Youtube video

Youtube video

Travel entrepreneur Becky Davies has very few memories of her father, Peter,
who died suddenly when she was two-years-old.

"My mum doesn't take a lot of pictures, she's just a very live-in-the-moment
type person, so we don't have any videos and hardly any photos," says the
now 33-year-old, who lives near Chester.

Then in late February, she saw the company MyHeritage had launched "Deep
Nostalgia", an artificial intelligence tool that could generate a "deepfake"
video from a single picture and bring photographs of ancestors or the
deceased digitally "back to life".

The tool works by layering the face from the photo a user has uploaded onto
an existing "driver" video of another person, who is acting out a series of
face movements. The video then wears the new face like a mask and artificial
intelligence helps blend the two together to make it look as if the person in
the photo is the one moving.

Immediately Davies knew she wanted to try it. "It was morbid curiosity I
guess".

She describes the experience as emotional. "When I first saw it, I
immediately burst into tears, just because it was the first time I'd ever seen
my dad animated and moving. It was the first time I'd seen him not in 2D
.

"It's a really basic video," she adds. "The innovation within the app makes
his head move to the side and then he looks up and then looks to the other
side, and then does like a little smile at the end… it looks really natural."


"It gave me a bit of a strange comfort because I thought, that's him. It's
almost like, there he is living."

In the four weeks since the tool launched, MyHeritage says it has been used
to create 65 million animations.

"We were actually blown away by the response, by the interest, the
engagement, also the levels of emotion, of people interacting with it," says
Rafi Mendelsohn, company spokesperson.

more below

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technolo...ves-back-life/

i think its good?

[bitontheslide]

it's not the person which i would have thought was the point of having photos etc. I would give it 9/10 for weird/creepy

[parmnion]

I say no.

Keep them in your head and look at the photos as normal and smile and cry as normal.

We dont need the idea of sharing a slice of cheese on toast with an array of lights.


Thank you though, to the company for thinking about things that others may like..but it's not for me.

[Cherie]

Not for me

[hijaxers]

I find all this to be weird. creepy crawley, its make me shudder and its distasteful.

Dunno what kind of weirdo would want to do this

[Kate!]

Not for me either. Very creepy.

[GoldHeart]

Originally Posted by Kate!

Not for me either. Very creepy.

I agree

[Toy Soldier]

I think it could be fascinating for animating historical figures etc. to get a better idea of what they actually looked like but... not your own dead family members...

[Niamh.]

Creepy

[parmnion]

Can I be very honest here..

See when my son died, I went up to see him at the funeral parlour before the funeral..I did see him from a glass window before that at the hospital, but that wasnt him.

At the funeral parlour, he was all dressed up like himself, and after the tears, I actually touched him, kissed him and talked to him..but all I think about that moment now, (well not all).but a fair bit, is how stiff and cold he was..


So maybe it may help others, to get over those memories.

I dunno though, tis what it is.

[LeatherTrumpet]

Originally Posted by parmnion

Can I be very honest here..

See when my son died, I went up to see him at the funeral parlour before the funeral..I did see him from a glass window before that at the hospital, but that wasnt him.

At the funeral parlour, he was all dressed up like himself, and after the tears, I actually touched him, kissed him and talked to him..but all I think about that moment now, (well not all).but a fair bit, is how stiff and cold he was..


So maybe it may help others, to get over those memories.

I dunno though, tis what it is.

i went to see my dad after he died but i wish i hadnt tbh

[Vanessa]

There's an app that can do that as well.
Someone was talking about it on Facebook.

[parmnion]

Originally Posted by LeatherTrumpet

i went to see my dad after he died but i wish i hadnt tbh

I watched my dad die, 5 months after the young un, Billy.

I probably now wish he had died younger after seeing the deterioration...but that's me.

Not anyone else.