Son ‘brings grandparents back to life’ using deep fake technology
Heartwarming moment son shows his mother and father images of their parents brought to life by deepfake technology
- Gagandeep Singh Anand, 26, uploaded footage of this grandparents online
- He used the genealogy website MyHeritage to animate the old images
- Gagandeep showed the images to his parents Gurcharanjeet and Manjeet
- Both his parents reacted emotionally seeing the moving footage of their parents
A son has captured the emotional moment his mother and father saw images of their own parents brought to life with deepfake technology.
Gagandeep Singh Anand, 26, uploaded images of his grandfather Harbans Singh and grandmother Narinder Kaur to the My Heritage website so they could be animated.
Gagandeep, from Northern California Bay Area, his brother, Ishwardeep Singh Anand, 27, and their friend Abdullah Rashidi were playing about on the website which uses the free technology called Deep Nostalgia to animate photos with strangely realistic results.
Gagandeep Singh Anand, 26, uploaded images of his grandparents Harbans Singh (left) and Narinder Kaur (right) so they could be animated and shown to his parents
Gurcharanjeet Singh Anand could not believe it when he saw the animated footage of his own father Harbans created by the MyHeritage website. He joined his palms as if in prayer after witnessing the technology at work
After uploading the results to his phone, Gagandeep showed his father Gurcharanjeet the animated image of Harbans, which prompted a highly emotional reaction.
Gagandeep filmed the moment, as Gurcharanjeet exclaimed: ‘Oh my God,’ and asked: ‘How did you do that?’
The amazed father put his hands together as if in prayer as he stared at the image of his father.
Gagandeep then showed his mother Manjeet the animated portrait of her mother Narinder.
As she realises the image is moving she reaches for her son’s phone and starts to cry.
Gagandeep shared his emotional footage online with the caption ‘Showing my parents their parents.’
Gagandeep’s mother Manjeet has a tearful reaction to seeing her mother’s moving image
Gagandeep Singh Anand (right) pictured with his parents Gurcharanjeet and Manjeet, as well as his sisters Jasleen, Sarbjeet and Kirandeep and his older brother Ishwardeep
MyHeritage has used the technology to bring historical figures, including Queen Victoria, Mark Twain and Florence Nightingale, back to life.
It says the technology gives history ‘a fresh new perspective’ by producing a depiction of how a person ‘could have moved and looked if captured on video’.
It has been developed by researchers at Israel-based firm D-ID, which specialises in video reenactment using deep learning.
Anyone can use the tool on the Deep Nostalgia webpage by uploading or drag-and-dropping an image – although to see the results you’ll need a MyHeritage account.
