Anne Frank, one of the Holocaust's most discussed Jewish victims and well-known symbols, has been brought to life by a new Israeli app and a Reddit user.
A new app developed by the Israeli-owned genealogy tracking company MyHeritage allows users to animate old family pictures using artificial intelligence features.
Circulating on social media platforms in the past few days, the app quickly gained popularity, with users using it to bring to life famous dead personalities and family members. One Reddit user with the username 17yearhibernation decided to use the app's unique features to animate the image of Anne Frank using an old photo.
"The results are, as expected, a little uncanny of course. However, it's interesting to me to see the humanity of Anne reflected in a moving image. It reminds us more of what she was: a little girl, a child who was legally murdered," the user wrote.
Using the new MyHeritage feature to animate photos of Anne Frank. from r/Judaism
And while some users welcomed the idea and the chance to commemorate Anne Frank's memory in innovative ways, others questioned its necessity, calling it "disturbing" and "creepy." Other famous personalities brought back to life using the app include Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa and the 16th President of the US Abraham Lincoln.
#DeepNostalgia Mona Lisa animated with MyHeritage.#monalisa #painting #contemporaryart #deepfake #DeepLearning #fineart #animation pic.twitter.com/Hq10cBOBLO
— Andrey Frolov (@kznsq) February 27, 2021
MyHeritage is best known for allowing users to easily discover their family trees online, allowing some to reconnect with family who was thought to be gone forever.AI #Deepfake animation of Abraham Lincoln with a new tool of MyHeritage. pic.twitter.com/BKYfq7j1CS
— Mdiks (@Mdiks1) March 1, 2021
The platform allows users to submit DNA samples to the company using DNA testing kits, which are then analyzed and used to map out a genetic family history. It is currently used by 62 million users worldwide, who have collectively created more than 58 million family trees, according to the company.
The MyHeritage site is available in 42 languages and has one of the largest databases of DNA records in the world.
Zev Stub contributed to this report.
