Technology keeps evolving, and while we get completely stoked over some advancements, several breakthroughs leave us with mixed feelings. And ‘Deep Nostalgia’ AI is one of those. Before we start dishing out our opinion about it, we should first tell you what it is.
Deep Nostalgia is an AI-powered service that animates your old photos and brings them to life. The service caused a major stir on Twitter by posting videos of some of the animated old photos, and the Twitterati could not handle the creepiness.
Infusing AI Into Nostalgia
Deep Nostalgia service is a product of an online genealogy company MyHeritage. It uses AI licensed from D-ID to generate the effect that makes it seem like the still image is moving. It reminds us of the ‘live photo’ feature that we have seen on Apple and Samsung flagships that takes a short video of the time you’re clicking the picture.
Deep Nostalgia AI can work on photos taken from any camera, even a polaroid, and when you upload them, it adds the effect to animate it. Some of the examples posted by the company are downright creepy. You see these almost ancestral quality photos or portrait shots of people coming to life (with their eyes moving, head tilting, and more).
The AI uses pre-recorded driver videos of facial actions and implements the best fit on the still photos you upload. The service aims at bringing back the memory of loved ones as it allows users to upload pictures of their deceased relatives or friends and see them move.
On the surface, the idea sounds nice, and we totally get why the service came into existence. But the result does not seem to give a nice feeling. But that’s just our take (in this case, the author’s personal take) on the entire thing.
You Can Give It A Try Too
If you’re enthralled by the idea of Deep Nostalgia and would like to see some of your personal photos in action, then you can do it easily. All you have to do is sign-up for a free account on MyHeritage and upload free photos. The site fixes and enhances the photo before turning it into a GIF.
And if you’re worried about your privacy, then the site’s FAQ page states that it does not share your photos with any third-party. The main page also has a disclaimer that reads,“photos uploaded without completing sign-up are automatically deleted to protect your privacy.”
As one may expect with any new technology, this one has also found its way to meme pages on Twitter and other social media websites. Interestingly, some users are digging real old photos and animating them with Deep Nostalgia.
One of the users on Twitter, an archaeologist, uploaded photos of ancient statues with blank eyes. Check out the result below:
For now, you can only upload 5 photos for free on MyHeritage. After that, you will have to sign-up for a paid account to upload more pictures and animate them.
Are you going to give it a try? Share your thoughts with us in the comments.
