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The growth of AI

RichSmith

RichSmith

master brummie
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.
D6FF4E9C-D315-4E72-AB3E-78E3ECE38613.pngIMG_6610.jpegIMG_6612.jpegIMG_6611.jpegIMG_6613.jpeg
 
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.
 
mikejee said:
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.
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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
 
mikejee said:
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.
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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
 
I took a picture which turned out very blurred, either from the Wye Valley Walk 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.

IMG_3268.jpeg

2FE773BA-5DA3-4640-8309-E7959D22DBC9.png
 
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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.
 
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.
 
I agree about aging. My mother looked very similar to early photographs of her. I also tell the story that someone a few years younger than me, who I did not know, at school, but who had often seen me talking to a friend at lunch, recognised and approached me 40 years later for confirmation that it was me
 
RichSmith said:
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.
View attachment 223503View attachment 223505View attachment 223507View attachment 223509View attachment 223511
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Do you have an example of one of the original pictures for comparison ?
 
This is the original and only photo I have of my great grandfather Ernest, this is the anchor phot, then I used photos of his children including my grandad and my dad and me and then picked out what the shared family features wereIMG_6547.jpeg
 
Pedrocut said:
Most photo restoration apps use AI, although on the Apple IPad they prefer to call it “machine learning.”
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Thanks for that. All the mystery about AI is, I think, based on development of the process originally called "machine learning". It is not impossible that a machine ('puter), if so programmed, could store, categorise and link information from its everyday data processing and then use it later (if so programmed) to surprise and impress us. Machine learning has been around for a while and does not sound as exciting as AI. Remember please that AI is not the general intelligence (GI) that we all have, took millions of years to develop naturally and is very different
 
Pedrocut said:
Machine learning has been around since the 1950s.
AI largely built on machine learning.
AGI the future ?
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AGI (Artificial General Intelligence)? We all have GI and, perhaps, this is AGI? What, in this context, does "artificial" really mean? An earthworm, for example, has some intelligence where it hides from the sun and knows what to eat. What gave the worm this intelligence? It seems to me that this I is fundamental to life as we know it. Who designed it? (I am not religious, by the way). Even plants turn to the sun and surely, this is a start. There have been hundreds of millions of years for this, GI, AI, GAI, whatever it is, to develop (evolve) on earth. Who, what, kicked it off and why? It is, using a Trumpism, very, very good.
 
In AI the generally accepted meaning of ‘artificial’ is probably human-designed rather than naturally evolved. Whether an earthworm possesses intelligence depends on how you defined intelligence. This is arguably both a scientific and philosophical question.
 
AI’s origins go back to ancient myths about artificial beings endowed with intelligence by master craftsmen – from Greek automatons to Hebrew golems. That idea carried forward into the modern era, most famously through Alan Turing's work on computability and his 1950 paper on thinking machines. However, the actual term 'artificial intelligence' was coined by John McCarthy in 1956, and early pioneers were wildly optimistic, predicting human-level AI within a generation. They soon realised they had vastly underestimated the complexity of real intelligence.

The key problem, as I see it, is the name itself – 'artificial intelligence' suggests an independent entity capable of genuine thought and decision-making. What we actually have today are Large Language Models (LLMs): neural networks trained on enormous amounts of text to perform natural language tasks, especially generating plausible responses. They don't 'think' – they predict patterns.

That said, they are incredibly useful. Like humans, they have limitations and make well-intentioned errors, but used collaboratively they are a powerful tool. I recently solved a complex technical problem by working with an LLM. When a friend asked what the advantage was over Googling it, I said: about three and a half hours.

Do I think AI will take over the world? No. Do I think we can all benefit from it? Absolutely.
 
Vivienne14 said:
A check for AI. Always check the eyes - they often don't move.
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Your spot on with that Viv eyes, hands and fingers and the HDR look. There are a few so-called Birmingham History Face Book groups who are posting AL slop and getting all nostalgic about a golden past that never way. It making a nonsense out of encouraging people to think about the past and events
 
I have found Google AI very useful on occasions. [and yes, I don't just accept anything without question]. On occasions I have entered a topic on Google and the AI summary has on occasions included a link or info not found before. So use it BUT with caution and check before accepting it as a fact.
 
Pedrocut said:
The question that could be asked is…
Could a small number of people use AI to gain unprecedented influence or control ?
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Probably. But they could also use a rumour, a gun, a religious belief (it's been done) or a magic can of beans. A good question and I don't mean to be condescending or facetious. I think there is a problem where new methods, devices, ways of doing stuff can be given buzzwords which gain popularity without full understanding.
 
superdad3 said:
I have found Google AI very useful on occasions. [and yes, I don't just accept anything without question]. On occasions I have entered a topic on Google and the AI summary has on occasions included a link or info not found before. So use it BUT with caution and check before accepting it as a fact.
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Sorry - off topic but I love dogs to pieces and your picture is of very good looking and friendly hound. Mine died about a year ago and I'm too old for a new one. What is his/her name?
 
Let's take a moment to remind ourselves how this thread started – it was about an AI photo restoration to help someone identify an ancestor. It's useful to have this discussion to help other members gain a better understanding of the subject, especially now that we're seeing a few AI-manipulated images appearing here. I've also seen a Facebook group calling itself 'Birmingham History' posting AI-generated slop purely to get likes and 'golden age that never was' comments, so we do need to be mindful of this.

Let's also please steer clear of the political arena – there are other online platforms for that, and this forum's value is in its local, practical, and good-natured focus
 
ManBaz said:
Sorry - off topic but I love dogs to pieces and your picture is of very good looking and friendly hound. Mine died about a year ago and I'm too old for a new one. What is his/her name?
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Hi ManBaz, thank you for kind comment - please see reply today under "Bella".
 
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