A new program can animate old photos. But there's nothing human about artificial intelligence - KTVZ

It's hard to explain the mix of emotions that spark upon seeing a photo of Frederick Douglass come alive with the click of a button. And yet, there he is, blinking and nodding as if he were just alive yesterday, as if he hadn't died in 1895, years before film recording became commonplace. His animated image and others like it -- at the same time unsettling, emotional, and a bit fantastical, are made possible by Deep Nostalgia, an artificial intelligence program from the genealogy platform MyHeritage. As far as AI-animated images go, the technology behind these Harry Potter-esque photos isn't particularly complex. Users are invited to supply old photos of their loved ones, and the program uses deep learning to apply predetermined movements to their facial features.