The “Synthetic Memories” project uses artificial intelligence (AI) to transform lost memories into dreamlike images, offering support to people with dementia, traumas or suffered forced displacement, and also contributing to the preservation of collective memory.
Launched as a pilot project in 2022 by the Barcelónes collective “Domestic Data Streamers” – formed by journalists, researchers, artists and scientists – “synthetic memories” converts memories into visual images through AI, helping people recover their past and identity.
“It emerged in our study, with the aim of finding social uses at AI, while exploring how technology could preserve memory,” explains Efe Airí Dordas, a member of the collective.
The process of generating a “synthetic memory,” Dordas explained, is developed from a conversation between who orally recounts his personal memory, the person who conducts the interview and an assistant called “Prompter”, responsible for giving indications to the AI software to generate images.
The first experiments were carried out in residences of the elderly of Barcelona, and currently the initiative continues to expand, helping people affected by displacements or conflicts, offering support in dementia therapies and contributing to the preservation of cultural and architectural heritage, among other actions.
This process is being perfected collaboratively, through its own software, to achieve a reflection as faithful as possible of the memory, resulting in a “memory vector”, both printed and digital, with a deliberately blurred aesthetic that evokes the very nature of human memory.
“Neuroscientists talk that our memory, instead of being a video or a high -resolution film, is like a sequence of images that resemble an oil painting more,” says Dordas, who pointed out that there is also an ethical reason, and it is that it is a way of differentiating between a photograph and a generated image that represents a personal and subjective memory.
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‘Synthetic memories’: an AI project to combat oblivion and preserve identity
“We invited our grandparents to the office to interview them and ask them about memories of which they might not have images or had lost them. Very quickly we saw that it was a very powerful methodology that was generating many positive emotions in them,” said the expert about the origins of the “synthetic memory”, after which they started with the first experiments carried out in residences of the elderly of Barcelona.
“We have developed different projects in countries around the world. One of the first we did was in Sao Paulo (Brazil) with a cultural institution called ‘Casa Do Povo’, to work on mediation with different migrant communities that lived in the neighborhood of Bom Retiro,” Dordas said.
The collection of “synthetic memories” in the Brazilian neighborhood gave rise to a cultural exhibition that gathered all the images of memories, which helped to promote a collective debate about the origins of the neighbors, while promoting empathy between the different communities.
Another example of the projects in which “Domestic Data Streamers” is working is located in Dubai, where together with the National Health Service they are investigating the effectiveness of reminiscence therapy in people with dementia, training young psychologists to lead the collection processes.
The “memory vectors,” Dordas explained, are stored, with the consent of the participants, in an open and digital file in their databases, which can be visited on their website.
“Synthetic memories” was announced in July as winner of the Ars Electronica award in the category of “Digital Humanity”, and this Thursday the award has been given to its creators in a gala held during the festival.
“The jury recognizes ‘synthetic memories’ as a powerful and constructive example of how AI can be used not to replace memory, but to interact with it as a form of reflection, healing and intergenerational exchange,” said the jury.
“Domestic Data Streamers”, founded on September 28, 2013, seeks to “return to society what has given technology”, not limiting its use to efficiency and individual productivity, but orienting it towards social purposes: helping people, strengthening historical memory or promoting the approach between communities.
With EFE information.
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