The MyHeritage page, which specializes in video reconstruction, has created an application that allows you to animate photos in seconds. See Simón Bolívar, the sage Caldas and Policarpa revives.
“Deep Nostalgia” or Deep Nostalgia has fascinated thousands of people. It is the application launched by the company MyHeritage, specialized in video reconstruction, which in a few seconds is able to bring to life images with characters from the past. At least 26 million photos have been uploaded to this page to see them converted into a short video in which the original characters make natural gestures.
Simón Bolívar, for example, can blink and move his face as if he were recording with a modern camera, even if it is just one of those old oil portraits hanging in a museum.
Or Polycarp Salavarrieta, better known as La Pola, the heroine who spied on the forces of Creole independence during the Spanish reconquest, comes to life before our eyes. Animating a face in a photo usually takes 10 to 20 seconds.
The technology behind Deep Nostalgia uses video models as a basis for animating photos. “Each video model contains a fixed sequence of movements and gestures. Deep Nostalgia can apply a video model with high precision on a face that appears in your photo “, explain the creators on their website.
As these types of digital tools have become more sophisticated and realistic, they have also been used for inappropriate purposes and increase the risk of misinformation. Last year, a company was denounced that used a similar technology to create nudes of people, mainly women, from a simple photo.
Perhaps hence the clear warning of the creators of Deep Nostalgia: “This feature is intended for nostalgic use, that is, to bring to life loved ancestors. Our video models do not include speech to prevent abuse, such as creating videos with ultra-fake live people. Please use this feature on your own historical photos and not on photos of living people without their permission.
Sam Gregory, program director for Witness, a nonprofit organization focused on the ethical use of video and an artificial intelligence expert, recently commented to The New York Times that “although Deep Nostalgia itself is harmless, it is part of it all. potentially very threatening tools ”.
Because there are several possible sequences of gestures for each photo, the program automatically chooses the sequence to apply to a specific face based on its orientation. “The gestures in the model videos that are used to create the animation sequences are real human gestures, and the actors in most of these videos are MyHeritage employees,” the company explains.
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