The growth of AI

[RichSmith]

AI in the wrong hands can be a horrible tool. However, I think it can also be used for good. I’ve been involved with AI photos since its inception so approx 3-4 years. I use it mainly to create surrealist photo art.

I started a project a few weeks ago, which I have been refining and tweaking and am now satisfied with, I thought I’d share with you.

I am fortunate in that I have one grainy black and white photo of my great grandad as well as access to some of my great grandmothers close family. I don’t have any of my great grandma and that hurts me.

Because of this I began the project of using AI to de-age my great grandfather and create an image of what my great grandma would have looked like based on their children and her siblings. This is the resulting photograph that AI and I have come up with.

Of course, I can’t prove this is what she looked like but based on evidence I do have I’m probably 90% certain that this is them as a courting couple just before they married.

 

[mikejee]

Richard. That is fine for personal purposes , as you know that it might not be accurate, but much of the results of photo AI is presented without acknowledging this fact, and people are taken in. That is why I do not lkike it.

 

[Tinpot]

Richard. That is fine for personal purposes , as you know that it might not be accurate, but much of the results of photo AI is presented without acknowledging this fact, and people are taken in. That is why I do not lkike it.

Exactly Mikejee. There have been references to videos on BHF only this week which have made me suspicious of whether they are AI generated and who made them. Tinpot

 

[Astoness]

Richard. That is fine for personal purposes , as you know that it might not be accurate, but much of the results of photo AI is presented without acknowledging this fact, and people are taken in. That is why I do not lkike it.

same here mike...for the sake of history being as accurate as we can get it i personally do not like messing around too much with old photos...the odd restoration is fine but to change a photo too much is not for me....for instance like you i have seen photos posted of a street or road with added buses..people shops..pubs and when researched through maps and directories we have found out that the photo is completely wrong so for me i would rather have a tatty true photo than a made up AI...but as i always say each to his own

lyn

 

[Pedrocut]

I took a picture which turned out very blurred, either from the Wye Valley Work or Offa’s Dyke Path, somewhere between Monmouth and Chepstow. Using unblurring Apps, including AI did not produce much difference But using AI to generate a watercolour impression I have a better chance of finding the location.

 

[Pedrocut]

Most photo restoration apps use AI, although on the Apple IPad they prefer to call it “machine learning.”

 

[RichSmith]

i absolutely agree with you mikejee, i qualified my post by saying it can be horrible in the wrong hand and its purely for my own amusement, but look at Pedrocut's picture, its lovely compared to the original. I more than likely will never know what my great grandma looks like and thats the way of the world, but if a tool, and thats all it is can bridge the gap, then as long as i'm not persuading you THIS IS MY GRANDMA i think it can be justified.

 

[Morturn]

It has its uses and for personal use it can be quite good. The images generated of people subjects to have an 'AI' look like an HDR photograph. There is also an uncanny aspect of things looking too perfect, well known in the industry as the Uncanny Valley. I see it as an occasional useful tool, but not a silver bullet and will tend to serve you what you want to see.

As a personal project for de-aging it can fill a need, however how people age I would say it unpredictable. My grandfather did not seem to change very much, but my mother, his daughter changed significantly over time and I can hardly recognize her when young.