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What is AI you ask? Al is Artificial Intelligence and is a computer-based system that can mimic human intelligence and perform human tasks.

We often encounter chat icons on various businesses and other websites. These chat icons are powered by AI technology. Customers can type in their queries, and the AI will generate a response to the questions. In some cases, the AI may prompt the customer with more questions to better understand their query and provide a more helpful answer.

MyHeritage has introduced an AI-powered feature called Record Finder, which is designed to search for records related to your ancestors and suggest potential matches. The two most popular types of artificial intelligence are deep learning and generative AI. Deep learning involves the use of vast amounts of data to identify patterns and interpret multimedia content such as photos, audio, and text, similar to how the human brain works. Generative AI, on the other hand, can create new multimedia content, such as photos, audio, and text, based on the user's input data. The AI system uses this data to understand patterns and generate output that matches the user's query. 

AI Record Finder™: is an innovative free text chat that acts as an alternative to traditional search forms. It understands context and asks follow--up questions to help you locate the information you need.

AI Biographer™ - an innovative tool that uses generative AI to create a detailed article on any of your deceased ancestors. The AI Biographer™ draws upon information from your family tree and incorporates additional details from historical records, other family trees, and historical context from the web to create a comprehensive biography. Each AI Biography™ also includes source citations and photographs.

Colorize, enhance, repair, and animate photos with the MyHeritage photo features:  these smart photo features are based on deep learning AI. They include-

· Photo Repair: a feature that automatically fixes scratches, tears, holes, stains and other damage on historical photos.

· Photo Enhancer: a feature that improves the quality of photos and brings blurry faces into sharp focus. 

· MyHeritage In Color™: an automatic photo colourization and colour restoration tool that breathes life and colour into old family photos. 

 · Deep Nostalgia™: a one-of-a-kind feature that allows you to animate the faces in your old family photos.

DeepStory: Creates an animated video with speaking audio to produce a narrative about an ancestor’s life based on photos and details from your family tree.

AI Time Machine™: uses uploaded photos to produce amazing avatars allowing you to travel through history.

PhotoDater™: a feature that uses AI to estimate the date of a photograph based on clothing, hairstyles, background objects, etc.

AI platforms

While genealogy vendors such as MyHeritage, Ancestry and other genealogy database providers are incorporating artificial intelligence into the features they provide to users,

there are some popular AI platforms open to the public that you might want to consider using below.

Bard: Developed by Google, Bard (https://bard.google.com/) describes itself more as a conversational chatbot that can “generate text, translate languages, write different kinds of creative content, and answer your questions in an informative way.” Bard is the main competitor to the ChatGPT platform.

ChatGPT: Meaning “Chat Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” ChatGPT (https://chat.openai.com/) is the most popular publicly-accessible artificial intelligence platform.

Perplexity: A relative newcomer in the world of AI platforms, Perplexity (https://www.perplexity.ai/) presents a curated list of sources when answering user queries.

There seem to be endless possibilities for using artificial intelligence for family history.

· Analysing vast amounts of data.

· Translation and transcription: As already demonstrated with the release of the 1950 U.S. Census images. AI makes transcription and translation of record images faster and easier.

· Timelines and mapping: AI can build complex timelines as well as map event dates to locations for a better understanding of how our ancestors lived.

AI can also be a Pandora’s box filled with its own set of problems.

Lack of transparency: issues for users of AI is the inability to determine the source of the reference material used when generating content, recognizing AI-generated content, not adding source citations or watermarks to AI-generated content or images.

Bias: Studies have proven AI platforms can be biased, especially since content used as reference material is supplied by humans. The same biases we see in terms of race, age and gender are easily replicated by artificial intelligence.

Copyright: Many copyright and intellectual property issues related to AI have popped up in the past year. The U.S. courts have ruled that content created by AI cannot be copyrighted. In addition, several content creators including authors and performers have sued major AI platforms such as ChatGPT and Bard for scraping copyright protected content from the internet to help create AI-generated content.

False information: As the platforms using AI gather information, who or what is determining what is true and what is false? A recent example of a law firm submitting a legal filing created by artificial intelligence — resulting in a list of fictitious court cases to support legal arguments — demonstrates the problem. This is another reason that “human review” is often required before relying upon AI-generated content.

Source: MyHeritage https://education.myheritage.com/article/ai-genealogy-harnessing-the-power-of-artificial-intelligence-for-family-history-research