Quick Idea about AI and Old Photos

Published:  05/20/2022

It should be possible to feed two-dimensional (2D) images into a computer and use artificial intelligence to create a three-dimensional facsimile of your childhood home (or other spaces) in virtual reality. This would allow the user to virtually walk around in their childhood home. This could help unearth distant memories for the user, since spatial memory is so much better than other forms of memory. For example, it is not hard to navigate through an old neighborhood you grew up in after twenty or thirty years, but it’s much harder to recall an old friend's name or the date the Magna Carta was signed (1215 A.D., I think).

This could be used in therapy, in courts to recreate crime scenes, or just for some nostalgic fun. Public records could be used to get structural details right in the three-dimensional simulation, and, at least for people born recently, the many thousands of digital images taken of the spaces we inhabit.