MyHeritage Deep Nostalgia criticised for ease of misuse

The launch of 'Deep Nostalgia', an AI-powered system that enables users to imitate a person in a photograph, has drawn concerns about its potential use for unethical purposes.

Developed with Israeli AI firm D-ID, geneaology firm MyHeritage's Deep Nostalgia uses artificial intelligence to animate images so that they smile, wink, nod, and move their heads from side to side.

Reaction to the tool has been mixed. Some describe the results as 'amazing' and 'emotional', while others see it as 'spooky', 'creepy', and 'unethical'. Photographs of deceased and living people can be animated using Deep Nostalgia.

MyHeritage told the BBC that it did not include speech 'in order to prevent abuse, such as the creation of deepfake videos of living people'.

In March 2022, MyHeritage introduced LiveStory, which enables users to animate their creations through vocal storytelling by using deep learning algorithms that draw on a custom set of over 140 voices in 31 languages.