Do you believe that AI can be used to restore history and make dry bones reappear in the "flesh"?
Recently, the restoration of the head of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, Yuwen Yong, was announced. The emperor more than 1,400 years ago did not even leave a portrait, and experts have recreated his appearance with the help of archaeological results and AI - wearing an imperial crown, thin and heroic, and not angry and arrogant.
The lower left picture is the restoration of the appearance of Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty, and the lower right picture is the Emperor Wu of the Northern Zhou Dynasty Yuwen Yong in Yan Liben's painting "Emperors of the Past Dynasties".
Coincidentally, the "resurrection" of the Qin officials who #一个叫 "happy" #也上了热搜. The owner of Qin Jian, who is three years older than Qin Shi Huang, is three years older than Qin Shi Huang, and his 3D restoration image was recently announced by the Hubei Provincial Museum.
In addition, an AI drama short film about the stone carving "Jing Ke Assassinates the King of Qin" in the tombs of the Wu family in Shandong has become popular, an AI cartoon that restores the elephant hunting of "Shandong people" 100,000 years ago has aroused heated discussions, and in the Qingdao Museum, AI has also narrowed the distance between people and history.
On social platforms such as Douyin, "Wu Zetian's appearance is restored", "Zhu Yuanzhang is actually not ugly", "Qianlong Lingfei took a group photo", etc., which are dizzying. Topics related to AI restoration of history have received more than 1 billion hits.
So, is AI reliable in reconstructing history, and what is the value of this for us to explore the past?
One
When it comes to history, many people have the impression that "it is very profound, just like reading a book from heaven", "I can't stand it at all", or "I am discouraged" and "I am particularly persuaded to quit". Now, however, everything has quietly changed.
Just like the hit drama "Three-Body Problem" wearing a "helmet", with the blessing of AI technology, the long river of history is becoming more and more sparkling and vivid.
Shocking "blockbuster feeling". AI can make the leap from artifacts to scenes. The top ten new archaeological discoveries in the country in 2023 were recently announced, and the Yishui Bashan ruins in Shandong Province were selected and ranked first among the "top ten" with "the oldest date". More than 40,000 pieces of cultural relics were unearthed and collected, including an "ivory shovel", which was determined to be about 100,000 years old, which was the first discovery in China. An AI cartoon simulates and reconstructs the scene at that time, and the "Shandong people" live along the river and hunt fierce beasts, which is shocking.
The scene of the special exhibition of "Rites and Fortunes of the East - The Essence of Ancient Civilization in Shandong".
At present, the special exhibition "Rites and Fortunes of the East - The Essence of Ancient Civilization in Shandong" exhibited at the Shandong Museum has attracted national attention. After AI processing, the eggshell black pottery high-handled cup "can be broken by blowing", the red pottery beast-shaped pot "transforms into a cute pet", and the ugly Yue "hit the face and smile emoji...... The artifacts are full of modern texture.
Touchable "realism". "Is AI reliable to restore history?" is a question that many people ask. In fact, serious AI restoration has a historical basis. For example, Emperor Kangxi has many portraits handed down, which can be corroborated by each other, and on this basis, it can be restored to a greater extent to get closer to the true appearance of Kangxi.
For another example, the 3D restoration image of "Xi" is calculated based on some of the bones that have been preserved, and also takes into account the "occupational diseases" such as high and low shoulders and cervical spondylosis caused by his long-term desk work. Netizens exclaimed, "At first glance, it is from the Qin Dynasty." The restoration of Yuwenyong's head image is based on the ancient DNA capture probe, which obtained about 1 million gene loci on his skeleton and restored it through complex calculations.
The image of Kangxi restored by netizens with AI
A deeply immersive "sense of age". Text or black-and-white photos alone can easily create a barrier, but AI can bring back a sense of age and increase empathy. For example, CCTV used "4K+AI" to color and restore the black and white images more than 100 years ago, so that people can see the hard work of Chinese laborers in World War I, and also see college students during the "May Fourth Movement", waving slogans and flags...... Being immersed in the scene can make people more intuitive to understand the era of aggression by foreign powers and stimulate patriotism.
Two
If film is an "art of making dreams", then AI is a "technology that makes dreams come true". AI restores history, not to "picture lively" and "see the scene", but has many practical effects.
Explore the source of Chinese civilization and "tell the story out of the circle". For many years, cultural relics, classics, etc. were often confined to professional "circles". By restoring the scene through AI, more people can understand and like to watch it. For example, the new "Digital Scripture Cave" on the Dunhuang Academy is the world's first participatory museum beyond time and space. Through role-playing, people can "travel" to 4 different periods and interact with the ancients. At present, more than 6,500 high-definition Dunhuang digital archives are open to the world, and there is also an AI virtual human "Jia Yao" to give lectures, and there are countless fans.
The restored image of Qin Jian's owner "Xi" in Yunmeng Sleeping Tiger Source: Xinhua News Agency
AI can also facilitate the activation of ancient texts. At the recent Boao Forum for Asia, the "AI Reads Classics" series of short dramas was released, and the first episode was the hotly discussed "Removing Three Evils Around the Week".
Restore precious cultural relics and let national treasures "live on forever". In terms of restoring cultural relics, the application of AI+ scenes and large models has achieved initial results. For example, starting from 2023, Sanxingdui Museum will cooperate with Tencent to use algorithms to assist in the restoration of cultural relics, so that two large bronzes can successfully achieve "cross-pit matching". As the expert puts it, "AI is very capable of learning, as long as you feed it enough things." In the future, AI will scan all the hundreds of thousands of fragments at the archaeological site and reshape the artifacts, which will definitely be faster than people. ”
In the new Yinxu Museum, people can experience using AI to "decipher" oracle bone inscriptions. Previously, Huawei released the use of AI to "decipher" the ancient score of "Spring River Flower and Moonlight Night", so that the sound of the prosperous era more than 1,300 years ago can be reproduced in the world.
The Zhongshan Road City Memory Museum allows citizens to "go back" to their childhood in seconds Photo by Wang Lei
Inherit the urban context and make the memory "pay attention to the heart". Wu Zhiqiang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, said that in the process of urban change, some buildings are gone, and childhood scenes have disappeared, which is sometimes unavoidable, but can be retrieved through AI. At the Zhongshan Road City Memory Museum, a 7-minute video condenses a century-old history. Among them, the restoration of the urban scene of the last century is particularly moving: "Go back to the era of 'flowers' in seconds" and "Looking at these buildings, it is like returning to the home of your childhood".
Three
"Three hundred and sixty lines, there is AI in the line". Under the wave of technology, it is imperative to reshape and reform the archaeological and museum industry. How to better integrate AI technology with the restoration of history?
Let AI and history become a "partner". The deep and revolutionary power of AI should not be underestimated, and it should be actively explored with an open mind. It can be seen with the naked eye that in many large-scale cultural and museum venues, "AI + AR + museum" has gradually become the standard. Looking to the future, this will become an important means for people to perceive history.
The carved words on display in the new hall of the Yinxu Museum Source: Xinhua News Agency
For example, in the Qingdao Museum, many cultural relics have been "lived" and "fired" under the empowerment of technology. As long as you put on a pair of glasses, the cultural relics in front of you will become sensible, touchable and amiable, and automatically tell the "history of Qingdao". In many schools, the teaching of history is also combined with AI, so that students can feel the evolution of history more intuitively.
Get behind the wheel of technology. What AI restores is not necessarily the true face of history. On the one hand, AI is a "deduction" based on existing data, and if there is a problem with the existing data, or if the sample range is too small and only "small data", then the results are prone to bias. For example, some people have tried to restore Zhu Yuanzhang's appearance based on his portrait, but because several portraits are very different, the results are very different and unconvincing.
On the other hand, the attention mechanism of AI is different from that of humans, and its restoration is often "live", lacking inspiration and charm, and may restore a work of art to a mediocre work. At the same time, due to the large number of applications, it will also give rise to a large number of shoddy products, which is easy to mislead people.
AI assists Sanxingdui "god man" and "divine beast" to "cross the pit" combined
Therefore, to restore history, the "steering wheel" can only be in the hands of people, and only the operators themselves have excellent ability, high enough level, strict control, and continuous improvement of relevant systems, in order to maximize the advantages and avoid the disadvantages.
"Who are we, where do we come from, and where are we going", human beings can't expect AI to give the right answer to the search and question of the bloodline, but the time and space shuttle journey of "meeting the ancients" has inspired us and inspired us to travel deeper and farther.
(Editor: L, this article is published and produced by West Coast, from Qingdao propaganda, please indicate the source for reprinting)