When AI 'intervenes' in childhood, will everyone's dream of having 'Doraemon' come true?

Author: Those Things on the Internet

Children’s Day hasn’t even arrived yet, but the limited-edition set menus for Children’s Day at major chain restaurants are already running out of stock.

What is sold out is not the food, but the toys that come with the package.

KFC’s Sanrio, Pizza Hut’s Pokémon, McDonald’s Chicken McNuggets, and Wallace’s Journey to the West water guns... are all locked in advance by adults eager to celebrate Children’s Day.

The remaining adults who had not even touched the door to rush to buy looked at each other: the regret of not being able to buy all the KFC toys in childhood can last until they become financially free.

However, different people naturally have different ways to pursue their lost childhood and make up for their childhood regrets.

With the help of AI, yellowed black-and-white old photos can be automatically colored, and the cartoons that I watched with snowflakes on the TV during my childhood also have 4K restored versions... The improvement of AI technology has made high-cost technology become commonplace. In ordinary people's homes, many people use AI to awaken their childhood memories with one click.

The whole world is urging you to grow up, but AI can retain your childhood.

Use AI to implement childhood completion plan

"Childhood is the childhood you will miss when you grow up."

In order to remember her childhood for a long time, the first thing Li Xingxing found in her family’s old photo album was to scan all the old photos into her mobile phone.

However, the quality of old photos that are too old are inevitably not high-definition. Some photos only stay in the black and white stage, which is also regrettable. The photos that are damp, yellowed, moldy, damaged, etc. due to poor preservation are even more frustrating. The pursuit of childhood has to pause.

Therefore, she put her hope in the restoration of old photos.

In the past, repairing old photos required a professional "film doctor". After a complex and tedious process of cleaning, scanning, and color correction, old photos could regain some of their former glory. After the rapid development of new media, PS software is not accessible to everyone.

In short, "frame-by-frame repair" is a costly, time-consuming and labor-intensive matter.

The turning point came after the breakthrough of AI technology.

Netizens use various AI tools to restore old photos/pictures taken from Xiaohongshu

Nowadays, when you turn on your mobile phone, there are hundreds of WeChat applets that can provide the function of “restoring old photos”.

Whether it is scanning software such as Almighty Scanner and Quark Scanner, or camera software such as Meitu Xiuxiu and Xingtu, or just the mobile phone's own system, almost all are equipped with the "one-click repair of old photos" function, not to mention " Professional restoration software such as "You and Me Back in the Day" and "Old Photo Repair".

With the help of AI, ordinary people can make "the once blurry images clear frame by frame in front of their eyes" without any PS technology or much time, and can create black and white childhood photos with one click. Color.

AI restored Jay Chou childhood photos/Source: Space Child

AI can do more than that.

Whether it is overseas Snapchat or domestic apps such as B612, adults who want to "return to childhood" can't put it down with their "baby special effects", as if turning on the special effects to get childhood photos can take a time machine and go back to the past.

After filming the first special effect that can "rejuvenate one's youth", Xiao Chen, born in the 1980s in Jiangxi, couldn't help but sigh:

"This special effect is really good. You can know what you looked like when you were a child. At that time, I didn't have the conditions to take pictures and I didn't even remember what I looked like."

Picture cut from Douyin

My childhood regrets seem to be a little redeemed at this moment.

Whether it is restoring photos or generating new childhood photos, in addition to working on photos, reminiscing about classic childhood movies is also one of the important ways for adults to pursue their childhood.

With the rise of deep learning and AI algorithms, with the assistance of AI technology, videos that are not originally high-definition, have snowflakes, noise, screen jitters or compression distortion can also have 4K effects.

Starting in 2014, the Shanghai International Film Festival took the lead in launching a 4K restoration plan, and subsequently China Film Digital Base and other professional institutions also launched similar plans. Later, viewers can see 4K restored versions of many classic animation works such as "Calabash Brothers", "Black Cat Sheriff" and "The Legend of Nezha" on the online platform.

Platforms such as Station B have already uploaded various restored classic works by UP owners who recall their childhood.

With AI technology in hand, what kind of childhood do I not have...

Behind the "One-click awakening of childhood memories"

Although AI technology is also used, the main announcements of major companies have different focuses.

GFPGAN, which was submitted by Tencent PCG ARC Laboratory for old photo restoration, sparked a trial craze on the Internet as soon as it was launched. Last year, the code was officially open sourced, and the official has uploaded three downloadable pre-training models on GitHub. GFPGAN, which introduces a priori information and blind face restoration method, is clearer and higher quality than traditional face restoration.

Huawei's innovative technology team HMS Core's editing service plug-in Video Editor Kit has its own "lightweight AI Colorization algorithm model" that it is proud of. It is said that its AI coloring processing speed is more than 5 times higher than the industry average.

Key steps of AI coloring/Photo source shared by Shikrypton

Baidu teamed up with Movie Channel to release the industry's first "intelligent ultra-clear model" for the film and television industry - Movie Channel-Baidu·Wenxin, taking the lead in completing the film and television repair links in the entire AI industry chain.

The picture on the right is the restored screen of "Movie Channel-Baidu·Wenxin" in the movie "The World"/Source: IT Home

Different companies have different algorithm models, data sets, and training methods, so the final AI repair effects, AI coloring effects, film and television repair effects, etc. are slightly different.

Taking picture repair as an example, a blogger compared five different photo repair tools: CodeFormer, RestorePhotos.io, jpgHD.com, "You and Me Back then" and "Old Photo Repair".

CodeFormer and RestorePhotos.io are two free and open source tools.. The former is the work of Zhou Shangchen and others from Nanyang Technological University, and is implemented based on the Codebook Lookup TransFormer model. This photo repair tool is implemented based on the GFPGAN model of Tencent ARC Lab, as mentioned above.

The remaining three are paid software.

Judging from the evaluation results, the photos repaired by CodeFormer, jpgHD.com, and "Old Photo Repair" are higher-definition and more accurate, while the repair speed of RestorePhotos.io and "You and Me" is faster. The public is completely free to choose AI tools according to their own needs.

The picture is taken from "Horizontal Comparison of 5 AI Old Photo Repair Tools", author: Space Child

Of course, AI technology has not yet developed to the point of perfection.

There may be errors in AI coloring, AI repair, etc.

Some netizens put photos of celebrities into the special effects of "returning to three years old". It is not difficult to find that there is actually a difference between the childhood photos that were infantilized by AI with one click and the real photos of the stars themselves when they were young.

The left is a childhood photo of Yang Mi generated with one click by the special effect of "Back to 3 Years Old"; the right is a real childhood still of Yang Mi

The aesthetics of AI cannot satisfy everyone.

"Some photos are so weird after using the AI ​​one-click smile function" "AI repair repaired the girl's face so horribly"... There are countless complaints like this on social platforms.

Picture source Xiaohongshu@ostrich head with a flower

But as Ren Lifeng, the president of Xigua Video, said:

"Whether it is restoring cartoons or old images, it is not just to improve its clarity. What we want to restore is not only the memory behind these contents, but also the emotional resonance caused by these memories. , covering several generations.”

Picture source Weibo@half tangerine peel candy

This photo left a mark on life in the Northeast. That photo recorded a tender moment from the elders. This is the scene that adults miss when they were children. They look at the restored photos and listen to their mothers telling stories about the past to confirm the fact that they were loved.

Picture source Weibo@鱼儿

We will eventually say goodbye to our childhood that we will never forget, but after tracing our childhood through these old photos, we can "keep our innocence, fearlessly and move forward with that love."

AI, leaving no regrets in childhood

Yesterday cannot be pursued, and the significance of letting AI "meddle" in childhood is not only to make up for personal childhood regrets.

A technical team will use AI technology to help missing children return home, so that other people’s childhoods, other people’s families, and more childhoods in the future will have no regrets.

At the beginning of 2020, Sheng Jianzhong, who was still a doctoral student at the School of Software of Huazhong University of Science and Technology, accidentally saw a message about parents of missing children looking for relatives. When he clicked to watch it, he found that the photo provided was particularly blurry.

"With photos like this, maybe the child is right next to you and you can't identify him. At that time, I thought, could I help him and make it more likely that this child would find a home."

Artificial intelligence algorithms are Sheng’s specialty. At that time, many domestic software used foreign open source algorithms. The restored photos had the facial features of foreigners. Further research was needed to restore the photos of missing children in China.

After having the initial idea, Sheng Jianzhong gathered several like-minded students to start working together to develop an artificial intelligence algorithm for restoring old photos of missing children.

According to Ziniu News, Sheng Jianzhong and his team have now restored more than 1,000 photos of missing children, and 9 people have returned to their parents.

This is the protection from AI.

In the future, can AI technology’s protection of childhood go further and penetrate into every child’s daily childhood?

For example, some people born in the 1990s have applied AI to jaundice detection and built a jaundice test applet for screening infants and young children with an accuracy rate of 97%.

Can we expect AI technology to be widely used in more pathological identifications, to eliminate hidden dangers for children's growth as early as possible, and even to formulate reasonable dietary suggestions and work and rest plans based on each person's physical condition and living environment to keep them healthy? growing up.

In addition to travel safety, vision protection, green Internet and other issues that protect children's growth, a childhood without regrets cannot ignore the spiritual satisfaction of young people.

In addition to family, school and real partners, where did the companionship of the previous generation come from?

Those born in the 80s have "Black Cat Sheriff" and "Nezha Haohai", those born in the 90s have Rainbow Cat Blue Rabbit, Doraemon, and those born in the 00s have "Super Marines"...

Those educations about courage, wisdom, integrity, kindness, and friendship are subtly nourishing the hearts of young people in the company of two-dimensional heroes.

Nowadays, AI learning machines, smart reading desks and chairs on the market have begun to promote their "AI companion" functions - they can correct homework and guide writing, they can accompany people to practice piano and chess, and they can ask questions and answer questions. ……

Perhaps it can indeed reduce some childhood regrets, but regardless of appearance or intelligence, AI has obviously not developed to the point where people can regard them as friends.

With the advancement of science and technology, we hope that everyone will have their own Doraemon.

Li Xingxing is a pseudonym in the article.

References:

China Science News: Starting from the restoration of an old movie: AI is speeding up

Shikrypton Sharing: Relive the love of our parents and reveal the technology behind AI restoration of old photos

Space Kids: A horizontal comparison of 5 AI old photo repair tools

Yangzi Evening News: These young students are really good! Using AI to restore more than a thousand old photos of missing children and help reunite 9 families

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