'I can't believe it': Grandson surprises grandmother with AI video of her late husband
The woman, Sati, grinned as a once-still image of her husband, Jose, moved about, smiling back at her.
Her grandson, Martin Garchtrom, made the video and shared it with his followers on TikTok in early July.
'Is that Pepe?' Sati, 100, asked in the video, referring to him using a Spanish nickname, Storyful shared.
At one point, Sati cradled her face in her hands, overjoyed at what her grandson had created, before leaning back in for another look at her husband.
Watch the heartwarming moment
Grandmother is still 'in love like the first day' despite husband passing away over three decades ago
Sati's husband Jose passed away more than 30 years ago, according to Storyful.
She talks to her grandson often, and one common topic of discussion is the man she married all those years ago, Garchtrom said.
'My grandmother Sati always talks about my grandfather Jose,' Garchtrom said. 'She is in love like the first day.'
Her grandson is a UX designer and musician, and he loves showing his grandmother new technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), he told Storyful.
Pairing technology with her love for her late husband was a given. He remembered a photo of Jose that sits on a small table in her living room. He then explained to her how they could take the image and make something new.
'First, I told her, 'I'm going to take a picture of him with my cell phone,'' he explained to his grandmother. 'Then I said, 'I'm going to transfer this photo to the computer and we're going to make it come to life.''
As he played the video for her on July 7, he asked her if she understood what was happening.
'Oh my God,' she said in the video. 'I love you, Jose. We loved each other. I can't believe it.'
Bringing deceased loved ones back to life using AI
TikTok users aren't the only ones using AI to revisit coveted moments with loved ones. Alexis Ohanian, entrepreneur and co-founder of Reddit, shared a video of himself as a child with his late mother on X in June. In the AI-generated video, he and his mother hug and she looks at him before embracing again and rocking side-to-side.
'I wasn't ready for how this would feel,' he wrote. 'We didn't have a camcorder, so there's no video of me with my mom. I dropped one of my favorite photos of us in midjourney as 'starting frame for an AI video' and wow... This is how she hugged me. I've rewatched it 50 times.'
Ohanian's post spurred discussion, with some X users warning him against using AI to recreate moments like this, arguing that AI gives users false memories.
Ohanian replied to X users adding that his mom died almost 20 years ago, so he has 'grieved sufficiently.'
He added that his family couldn't afford a camcorder back then. In his eyes, using AI to make an animated video is similar to using AI to stabilize or fill in the gaps of old or poorly-recorded videos.
'It's not a replacement for a loved one nor should it be,' he wrote.
Saleen Martin is a reporter on USA TODAY's NOW team. She is from Norfolk, Virginia – the 757. Email her at sdmartin@usatoday.com.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
10 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Woman Leaves Husband's Birthday Dinner After He Jokes That Her Ovaries Need 'to Wake Up' Amid Infertility Struggles
The woman wants to know if she overreacted – but the internet doesn't think soNEED TO KNOW A woman walked out of her husband's birthday party after he made a joke at her expense During the celebration, he made an offhand remark about her ovaries needing to "wake up from a nap" amid her infertility struggles The woman asked Reddit users if she was overreacting for leaving abruptlyA woman says she walked out of her husband's birthday dinner after he made a joke about her infertility in front of their friends. In a since-deleted post on Reddit, the anonymous 29-year-old writes that she and her husband of five years have been trying for a baby for quite some time, but she has been struggling with fertility issues. The situation, she adds, has been "emotionally exhausting." "Last weekend, I organized a small birthday dinner for him with close friends and family," she writes. "Everything was going well until someone asked when we were planning to start a family. Before I could even respond, my husband laughed and said, 'Well, if her ovaries ever wake up from their nap, maybe next year.' " "Everyone laughed. I didn't. I just sat there frozen and then excused myself to the restroom," she continues. "I ended up texting my sister to pick me up and went home. He came home a couple of hours later furious that I 'ruined his birthday' and was 'embarrassing him in front of his friends.' " However, she told him that the joke "cut deep," especially "since he knows how hard this journey has been for me." Still, he told her that she "needs to learn how to take a joke and stop making everything about me." His response left her questioning if she was overreacting, but Reddit users were firmly on her side. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. "It was a terribly insensitive comment that he made in front of an audience at the expense of someone he is supposed to love. This is a clear indication that he doesn't respect you," one user wrote. They continued, "It would be very difficult for me to imagine risking my health, sanity, and a 20 year connection to a man like that by having his child. Maybe some marriage counseling first. You should always pay attention to things said in jokes, anger, or drunk. It will tell you exactly what someone really thinks." Another questioned, "How is a joke about your ovaries and your fertility not about you? Instead of saying sorry. Instead of acknowledging he hurt you. He chose to blame you? Good thing is, your ovaries are napping and you are not pregnant. So take this time to see if this man is who you really want to procreate with." Read the original article on People Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
24 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Experienced software developers assumed AI would save them a chunk of time. But in one experiment, their tasks took 20% longer
AI tools don't always boost productivity. A new study from Model Evaluation and Threat Research found that when 16 software developers were asked to perform tasks using AI tools, the they took longer than when they weren't using the technology, despite their expectations AI would boost productivity. The research challenges the dominant narrative of AI driving a workplace efficiency boost. It's like a new telling of the 'Tortoise and the Hare': A group of experienced software engineers entered into an experiment where they were tasked with completing some of their work with the help of AI tools. Thinking like the speedy hare, the developers expected AI to expedite their work and increase productivity. Instead, the technology slowed them down more. The AI-free tortoise approach, in the context of the experiment, would have been faster. The results of this experiment, published in a study this month, came as a surprise to the software developers tasked with using AI—and to the study's authors, Joel Becker and Nate Rush, technical staff members of nonprofit technology research organization Model Evaluation and Threat Research (METR). The researchers enlisted 16 software developers, who had an average of five years of experience, to conduct 246 tasks, each one a part of projects on which they were already working. For half the tasks, the developers were allowed to use AI tools—most of them selected code editor Cursor Pro or Claude 3.5/3.7 Sonnet—and for the other half, the developers conducted the tasks on their own. Believing the AI tools would make them more productive, the software developers predicted the technology would reduce their task completion time by an average of 24%. Instead, AI resulted in their task time ballooning to 19% greater than when they weren't using the technology. 'While I like to believe that my productivity didn't suffer while using AI for my tasks, it's not unlikely that it might not have helped me as much as I anticipated or maybe even hampered my efforts,' Philipp Burckhardt, a participant in the study, wrote in a blog post about his experience. Why AI is slowing some workers down So where did the hares veer off the path? The experienced developers, in the midst of their own projects, likely approached their work with plenty of additional context their AI assistants did not have, meaning they had to retrofit their own agenda and problem-solving strategies into the AI's outputs, which they also spent ample time debugging, according to the study. 'The majority of developers who participated in the study noted that even when they get AI outputs that are generally useful to them—and speak to the fact that AI generally can often do bits of very impressive work, or sort of very impressive work—these developers have to spend a lot of time cleaning up the resulting code to make it actually fit for the project,' study author Rush told Fortune. Other developers lost time writing prompts for the chatbots or waiting around for the AI to generate results. The results of the study contradict lofty promises about AI's ability to transform the economy and workforce, including a 15% boost to U.S. GDP by 2035 and eventually a 25% increase in productivity. But Rush and Becker have shied away from making sweeping claims about what the results of the study mean for the future of AI. For one, the study's sample was small and non-generalizable, including only a specialized group of people to whom these AI tools were brand new. The study also measures technology at a specific moment in time, the authors said, not ruling out the possibility that AI tools could be developed in the future that would indeed help developers enhance their workflow. The purpose of the study was, broadly speaking, to pump the brakes on the torrid implementation of AI in the workplace and elsewhere, acknowledging more data about AI's actual effects need to be made known and accessible before more decisions are made about its applications. 'Some of the decisions we're making right now around development and deployment of these systems are potentially very high consequence,' Rush said. 'If we're going to do that, let's not just take the obvious answer. Let's make high-quality measurements.' AI's broader impact on productivity Economists have already asserted that METR's research aligns with broader narratives on AI and productivity. While AI is beginning to chip away at entry-level positions, according to LinkedIn chief economic opportunity officer Aneesh Raman, it may offer diminishing returns for skilled workers such as experienced software developers. 'For those people who have already had 20 years, or in this specific example, five years of experience, maybe it's not their main task that we should look for and force them to start using these tools if they're already well functioning in the job with their existing work methods,' Anders Humlum, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Chicago's Booth School of Business, told Fortune. Humlum has similarly conducted research on AI's impact on productivity. He found in a working study from May that among 25,000 workers in 7,000 workplaces in Denmark—a country with similar AI uptake as the U.S.—productivity improved a modest 3% among employees using the tools. Humlum's research supports MIT economist and Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu's assertion that markets have overestimated productivity gains from AI. Acemoglu argues only 4.6% of tasks within the U.S. economy will be made more efficient with AI. 'In a rush to automate everything, even the processes that shouldn't be automated, businesses will waste time and energy and will not get any of the productivity benefits that are promised,' Acemoglu previously wrote for Fortune. 'The hard truth is that getting productivity gains from any technology requires organizational adjustment, a range of complementary investments, and improvements in worker skills, via training and on-the-job learning.' The case of the software developers' hampered productivity points to this need for critical thought on when AI tools are implemented, Humlum said. While previous research on AI productivity has looked at self-reported data or specific and contained tasks, data on challenges from skilled workers using the technology complicate the picture. 'In the real world, many tasks are not as easy as just typing into ChatGPT,' Humlum said. 'Many experts have a lot of experience [they've] accumulated that is highly beneficial, and we should not just ignore that and give up on that valuable expertise that has been accumulated.' 'I would just take this as a good reminder to be very cautious about when to use these tools,' he added. This story was originally featured on Solve the daily Crossword
Wall Street Journal
29 minutes ago
- Wall Street Journal
The AI Exec Who Isn't Trying to Become God
Microsoft MSFT -0.32%decrease; red down pointing triangle AI chief Mustafa Suleyman is walking a fine line between dreamer and realist. He has long been in the forefront of artificial intelligence. Yet when you listen to him talk about the moment we are in with its rapid development, he can almost sound like Eeyore compared with rivals.
