“Then, turning to my love, I said,
‘The dead are dancing with the dead,
The dust is whirling with the dust.’”
I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it – to bring them, to bring her, “back to life.”
The technology is available. It’s right there at my fingertips just a few taps away, but I can't seem to shake the haunting whisper of my conscience – though for now I can’t quite make out the whispered words.
I don’t think it’s superstition on my part – it’s not like I believe a photograph can capture people’s souls or anything like that – it’s just that I know it will be a fake, a cheap trick of digital dust. The family photos around my grandfather’s house haunt me enough already as familiar and friendly ghosts. I can only imagine how much less friendly and familiar the haunting might be to see my family members reanimated in their picture frames, brought “back to life,” smiling and squinting back at me.
Yet, that is what Elon Musk is offering with the latest feature of his Grok AI.
“All you need to do is download the Grok app to bring family photos to life!” Musk posted on X in response to a woman who had used the Grok “Imagine” function to reanimate an old photo of her grandparents.
“I finally got Grok to work for me. I am in tears,” the woman posted, “These are my grandparents on their wedding day in Italy. Grok made them come to life.”
As I write this, on the nearby wall hangs a photo of my grandparents on their wedding day nearly seven decades ago.
My grandmother passed away in 2021. My grandfather, now my roommate, is presumably one room over, sitting in his recliner, reading a sci-fi novel – if he isn’t taking a break to check how Aaron Judge and the Yankees did today.
Here’s an idea! I could throw my grandparents’ wedding day photo into Musk’s magic imagination machine!
Maybe my grandfather would fall to tears upon seeing it reanimated, or maybe he would find it more disturbing and alien than any science fiction novel he’s ever read.
Yet, I can’t bring myself to do it. The haunting whisper of my conscience stops me dead with words I still can’t quite hear clearly. The family photos in my grandfather’s house hang undisturbed, as silent and still as the day they were taken.
So many photos, so many memories of the living and the dead – from my great-grandfather to my grandmother to my uncles, aunts, and cousins pictured across all the seasons and stages of life – it honestly took me a while to get used to seeing them every day.
For most of my adult life, I’ve kept very few family photos. Indeed, the only framed photo I brought with me to my grandfather’s is a picture of my brother and me as little boys. It’s a classic, staged pose from one of those corny photo shoots that only a mother could demand from her sons before they grow up too fast. I could say I’ve kept this photo because it reminds me of my younger brother, but that’s not the full truth. Truth is, it reminds me of someone who isn’t even pictured in the frame but whose presence shines through nonetheless – my deceased mother.
Only mom could have gotten us to take that photo, so much so that I can’t help but see her spirit animating it again and again and again each time it catches my eye.
Of course, there are many pictures of mom around her father’s house from all stages of her life – a little girl, a daughter, a senior in high school, a nursing school graduate, a bride on her wedding day, a mother of two young boys, an aunt to nieces and nephews, a cancer patient still beautiful in her wig – they’re all over this place.
Admittedly, I like some of her photos more than others, usually the ones taken when she was still in the prime of her youth, before she passed away 10 years ago.
Yet, I haven’t been able to bring myself to do it – to bring her image “back to life” with Musk’s machine.
Why?
Because I know it wouldn’t be her, not as she truly moved and smiled, but an uncanny version of her made to dance and sing, animated by the whirling of digital dust and probabilistic puppet strings to appear as though she was once again a living thing – her memory turned into a marionette by machine for a momentary illusion.
Every time I witness one of those wretched things, reanimated and pretending to be alive, I can hear the haunting whisper of my conscience growing clearer with my disgust: “The dead are dancing with the dead. The dust is whirling with the dust.”
Joey Clark is a native Alabamian and is currently the host of the radio program News and Views on News Talk 93.1 FM WACV out of Montgomery, AL, M-F 12 p.m. - 3 p.m. His column appears every Tuesday in 1819 News. To contact Joey for media or speaking appearances, as well as any feedback, please email [email protected]. Follow him on X @TheJoeyClark or watch the radio show livestream.
The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information to [email protected].
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