Test cases with MyHeritage's new PhotoDater tool

Earlier I blogged the announcement from MyHeritage about its new PhotoDater tool (see http://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/08/myheritage-releases-new-ai-based.html). I was very kindly allowed a sneak preview of this last week, and have been testing it with some old photos from my collection and that of my wife. 

A few things to explain first. MyHeritage's new tool is an AI (artificial intelligence) based system that has been trained to recognise various attributes within photographic collections from around the world, covering various periods. When you open a photograph that you have uploaded into the MyHeritage Photos storage area, it will attempt to date the photograph using this new AI system, so long as there is no date given in the file name - in which case, it will default to the knowledge of the account owner who uploaded it. 

If the AI takes a shot at it, then in theory, within a few seconds, you will see a year appear under the file name, eg. "Estimated: 1915". Clicking on this will provide a bit more information, including an error margin range when 'More details' is clicked on  - e.g. 'Average error: +/- 5 years" - with a 'confidence level' stated, such as 94%. If that confidence level is above 80%, the AI is reasonably happy that it has got it in the right region, and if above 90%, it will be ecstatically happy, although it may still be possible for it to be in error (it is not 100% for a reason). 

From the MyHeritage blog:

"The algorithm provides date estimates for undated photos taken between 1860 and 1990, for which it is reasonably confident it can return results with high accuracy. Estimates are calculated only for photos that do not already have a date in the metadata, that include people, and that are actual photographs, not documents or gravestones. A photo of just a car or a scan of a historical record won’t receive a date estimate. Date estimates can be reviewed and saved by you to the photo’s metadata, or dismissed. If you prefer not to see any date estimates, you can turn off PhotoDater™ from the site settings menu."

The first photograph that I tested threw up quite a surprise. It was a portrait image of my great grandfather David Hepburn Paton, which I always assumed had been taken in the early 20th century, prior to the First World War and his untimely death in Brussels in 1916. 

According to the MyHeritage AI, however, the image can be dated to 1883, +/-6 years, with a confidence level of 82%. That throws up a range of 1877-1889. David was born in 1864, and so from the image, I think this must place him in his 30s, and so I would assume we are talking closer to 1889, but still much earlier than I had initially believed. David married in 1889, and so this seems to have been taken close to this period of his life. Is the AI right? I don't know, because this is a copy of the original, which itself had no additional information on its reverse, but it has certainly thrown up the possibility that it could well be a much younger version of my great grandfather that I am looking at here than I had initially believed. 

With my second example, I used an image that I did know the date for, a postcard of my grandfather taken in 1907, when he was about two and half years old.        

According to the AI, the image dated to 1908, +/- 6 years, with an 82% confidence. Yup, I'll settle for that! Interestingly, when I uploaded the same image but stated that it was 1907 in the image title, it still gave me the same year as 1908, with the same confidence level. 

The following image is from my wife's family, a postcard believed to have been sent to Ireland from France, which the AI puts at 1910, +/-5 years, confidence level of 89%.

Interestingly, when I uploaded a different version of this image, cropped from the card and imaged at a different time, the estimated date changed slightly, to 1908, +/- 4 years, and at 95% confidence, the extra extraneous info from the handwriting to the side having been removed.

 

 

There were several images that MyHeritage's tool just refused to date at all, some at a low resolution, and some which were in fine form, in focus etc, but which it just couldn't handle. 

In conclusion, there would seem to be some value to this as a resource, and it was certainly interesting to see if the AI's conclusions matched up to my own guesses, but it does not work for every image (which we were told was the case during the briefing with Daniel). 

As the AI develops, and samples more sources, it is hoped that it will improve further, but one thing the site won't take at the moment is user feedback, to help 'train' the AI. But I can certainly see this as being of potential use within my research, and I look forward to seeing it develop further.

(With thanks to Daviel Horowitz) 

Chris

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