Even Further
Above is a picture of my 4th great grandmother Anna Gerken (on the right), who never made it to the United States. Her son Johann, my third great grandfather would for reasons unbeknownst to me, would immigrate to the United States in 1853 taking up the name of John, leaving behind both of his parents and several brothers and sisters. I've pondered a lot about what would cause him to make such a break over the years but perhaps only around three or four years ago, I learned that it wasn't a clean break and that he journeyed back at least once to see his mother who lived until 1872. His father died in 1864. After the death of Anna, the three surviving siblings also immigrated to the United States to be with their elder brother completing this particular family's presence in Germany.
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Being one of the oldest pictures I own, I decided to use the AI Nano Banana to touch it up and get rid of the spots which it easily did as you can see above.
However, two things weighed upon my mind. First, it limits me to only four attempts per day and it has other features it advertised but only in the paid version. Second, I remembered at how amazed I was at Kay over at Musing's post on AI animating a photo. She described it as scary and I fully agree. But Nano Banana has a deal going on allowing you one month free access to the Pro version which gives you essentially unlimited use of all the features for that time if you give them your credit card, in hopes of forgetting about it and remaining signed up. I have no intention of doing that but I do have intention of touching up all my genealogy photos in rough shape in the next few weeks while I have access so I signed up for the free month.
So with full access, I had to animate a photo to see just how scary AI can be once again. Unlike the touchup-ed photos which I will save alongside the originals with an appended filename stating that they were touched up using AI, I will not save the above video. After hitting publish, it will go into the trashcan on my desktop.
Scary indeed.
Wow Ed. You are right. That is scary.
ReplyDeleteEven if AI turns out to have only 50% of the promise people give it, the impact on certain things will be immense. You have aptly just generated what it will be on videos, photos, and (looking out) entertainment and media. I have to confess the more I see of it, the more I try to figure out every way to not use it.
I guess I feel that like it or not, it is here to stay along with all the ramifications. So if I can utilize it in some way to benefit me while not harming others, such as fixing up photo defects caused by time, I might as well. But I draw the line at using it when I know it might potentially harm or mislead others around me.
DeleteI noticed the spots or tears. I think they say alot for what must have been happening in their everyday lives. Their neck ribbons and bows is another indication that they were trying to be pretty and special for the photo. Linda in Kansas
ReplyDeleteThis picture has always fascinated me as to my knowledge, it is the only one I own that was taken in Germany and traveled all this way to Iowa. The vast majority of mine were taken in Iowa or at least the United States.
DeleteThat's a strange animation. For a minute I thought they would start doing jumping jacks!
ReplyDeleteThat is what I typed in as the command but what you saw is what AI interpreted those as. German jumping jacks perhaps!
DeleteTheir dancing cracked me up. AI is scary but it does make for funny moments that never happened.
ReplyDeleteIt made me smile before the power of what AI created wiped it off my face.
DeleteWell that's bizarre. What kind of "command" did you give it for the video?
ReplyDeleteI told AI to show them doing jumping jacks. I have found that AI can’t do complex animations…. Yet.
DeleteThe late 1840s were tough times in Germany and that may have to had something to do with his decision to immigrate. Good work on that photo. It's amazing that you have one that old.
ReplyDeleteI have read about Germany being tough at the time but Johann/John, being the oldest surviving male, likely would have inherited the farm and yet he still gave that up. It turned out well as he died quite wealthy here. I’ve have pondered if perhaps a mandatory stent in the military caused him to jump the pond.
DeleteIt's fascinating, but it makes one wonder about all videos. Are they real? How would we know? I hate to feel skeptical about everything, but here we are.
ReplyDeleteI can’t answer that but feel the same way.
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