How Accurate is the MyHeritage AI Time Machine?

How AI Time Machine Works

AI is timeless, an entity of several trillions of calculations that can collect historical data, and build upon the present to predict the future. However, as we all are witnessing for a while now, AI is going the opposite way than we had predicted. We’ve already mentioned that in one of our previous articles. Every futurist from 2010 predicted AI to first take over physical tasks, then maybe someday creative works. But as we can see with AI image generators, AI has turned creative before helpful, and, in fact, is using that creativity to help us with physical tasks. It’s going just the opposite. Similarly, in contrast to a future-predicting AI, MyHeritage’s AI’s ability to predict the unseen past is trending.

Introduction to MyHeritage AI Time Machine

MyHeritage AI Time Machine is an emerging technology that utilizes your photos to show you a glimpse of what your ancestors looked like. Basically, it allows you to explore the past and see yourself in different roles. As you consensually submit 10-25 photos of yourself, the AI engine creates your AI avatar in various periods in history. You can customize gender, pose, and background to get photorealistic images. In fact, you can also share these images on social media and use them as profile pictures. It takes 30-90 minutes to generate these images, and the output depends on the quality of the photos uploaded. MyHeritage offers a subscription plan, as well as a one-time purchase to get access to all the Time Travel themes. A free trial period is also available at times. AI Time Machine is a fun way to explore the past and see yourself in different roles.

myheritage AI time machine demo — Image credit: MyHeritage.com

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What it is Not

Over-excitement is only normal, when an ancestry website, not even a tech website, offers you a “Time Machine”. Calm down, we’re just not there yet! Here are the 5 common misunderstandings about the MyHeritage AI Time Machine:

Does not provide an exact or close resemblance to your ancestors. It all happens automatically using specialized technology. The AI avatars generated by MyHeritage are synthetic images and not actual photographs.

Not an actual time machine. It is not a real-time machine, and you will not be able to travel back in time. No, you are not going to get a physical or video-based time machine to meet your ancestors with MyHeritage.

No guarantees of perfection. While highly realistic, images created by AI Time Machine™ are simulated by AI too; they are not authentic photographs.

Not foolproof. It is important to upload photos featuring only one person. If there are other people who appear prominently in your photo, crop them out before uploading them.

Does not guarantee results for all ages. No. The technology for MyHeritage AI Time Machine™ needs to create a model of the person, and photos from a wide range of ages tend to confuse it.

How accurate is the MyHeritage AI Time Machine?

We can not yet measure the accuracy of MyHeritage AI Time Machine, as it is not a photograph. It is a simulated image created using AI. The AI still needs to go through a lot of hustles before actually predicting what your stone-age ancestors looked like. Accuracy, in terms of the image, depends on the quality of the photos uploaded. A higher number of photos with varied poses and expressions, taken on different days, will give you better results.

Furthermore, it all depends on several factors, including:

quality and diversity of the photos uploaded
number of photos uploaded
lighting and background
gender and pose

The accuracy of your ancestors’ physical characters, however, is indefinite. That’s because AI can only go so far in simulating facial features, body type, and physical characteristics similar to you. Now, 20 generations back, you had a million ancestors, and it’s yet impossible to predict the exact look of one of them. I said “yet”, because who knows, collective DNA-based technology is already a thing. In fact, MyHeritage has been long known for its DNA testing kits, long before this AI thing. And maybe in a few decades, we’ll be able to predict our ancestors’ physical characters accurately. Funnily enough, though, that’s when we will really be able to travel back in time.