MyHeritage unveils AI tool that turns photos of dead relatives into videos
MyHeritage, a website where users can research their family trees, has announced a “deep nostalgia” feature that can turn even a single photo of a relative into a video where they can smile and wink back at them.
The feature, created with the Israeli computer vision firm D-ID, is the latest milestone for artificial intelligence-generated media, which has spread from high-end Hollywood films to casual hobbyists in just a few years.
The technology allows MyHeritage’s 60-million users to map their photographs over the facial expressions of real people, in this case MyHeritage employees, to create realistic videos in which lips, eyes and faces move.
Gilad Japhet, CEO of MyHeritage, said the effect “lets us imagine how they might have been in reality”.
MyHeritage also announced that it was being acquired by Californian venture firm Francisco Partners.
“This move will enable us to reach new heights, invest more resources in creating greater value for our users and to reach a larger audience,” said Japhet.
Gil Perry, CEO of D-ID, said families could now “relate to their distant ancestors in ways never imagined before”. He added that resurrecting figures from the past was a growing area of interest.
D-ID’s advertising work includes animating US president Abraham Lincoln and prolific bank robber Willie Sutton.
Meanwhile, Microsoft received in 2020 a patent for a chatbot to have virtual conversations with individuals “past or present”, though its GM of artificial intelligence (AI), Tim O’Brien, said in February that there were no current plans to build such a system.
Henry Ajder, who researches synthetic media, said there remained plenty of ethical questions on resurrecting past figures, including whether the consent of the deceased was required and for what uses it might be put.
Perry said D-ID had strict guidelines on the companies it teams up with and its videos featured a watermark showing they had been artificially created. “We see ourselves as the good guys of synthetic media, using the technology for higher purposes.”