Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian posted a short video by her late mother hugging her, which soon watched a tens of millions of times. Not because the video was a time capsule of a long time ago, but because it made it only one still image.
Ohanian used the new AI video generation feature from mid -zorney to make a video based on the same photo. For that, it is a time machine for six seconds before decades. Millions of audiences shared that interpretation of the clip, but a significant number of disagreement voices warned that it was a fake memory that could play with Ohanian’s real remembrance of her mother.
Even though people felt about the video, it seemed clear that most people felt some intestine about the face of a speculative moment. Ohanian wrote, “This is how he hugged me.” And in that sentence the entire heart breaks and hope of the digital age alone: to remember the pain more clearly, to keep someone who has gone, to use machines for profit or monitoring, but for some intimate. human being.
There is no shortage of AI tricks that are still floating all around. You can generate an image of your cat as an Olympic diver, as an animated cartoon to your family’s picnic, or as your child in your future profession. Mostly, these are lightly entertaining FADs that also portray large issues around AI. But this is not a disposable video for Ohanian. This is a clip that he has clarified that it will be a treasure. And is he just taking advantage of AI to keep his mother’s memory alive or to build false memories because he feels slipping to real people, he is not the first and undoubtedly paid more attention to the idea.
There is a strange vulnerability to invite a machine to guess your memories. It sounds like asking a stranger to end his dream. AI does not know your mother. Don’t know how she laughs or how tight she hugged you. It only knows Pixel. But sometimes we have all got pixels.
If you have lost someone, especially before the smartphones and camcorders have tracked our every moment, you know what to do that you have more videos and photos of that person. Ohanian said that his family could not give a camcorder. She has no video of her own with her mother. This is a picture of a throat in the meadow. But with the help of some signs and a sophisticated AI model, which resides again.
I lost my mother about 20 years ago. Trols can assure that I have adequately mourned. My family could not bear the expenses of a camcorder and using the technique to generate one to a few seconds of animation is still equivalent to using AI to stabilize a badly recorded video – or to fill in intervals…June 23, 2025
I don’t think many expressed inconveniences are only about Alexis Ohanian’s video or why they chose to make and share it. I think what can be about this option in the worst scenarios. This moment is easy to see as the beginning of a dark and sad tendency.
I think it is fine if it helps Ohanian feel close to his mother. It is not that the image itself was an imagination; This external its memory of just one throat. It is like a more touched version of your parents’ final sound mail, or keeping around their favorite fragrant candle because it smiles you. Ohanian is not dramaing the video, but anything is memory ad. Whether to use AI to create false memories can become a real problem, but it is not so here.
Aye videos miss
After Ohanian’s post went viral, people started sharing their own A-Nimated family photos. For now, these are just pieces, silent and brief. But looking at the grief of the people and how they handle it, no matter how much time it is, there is nothing till I want to do until it is hurting anyone. A fair assessment must be individual.
So I worked the same as Ohanian. I have found a picture that I always like with my mother, who died 13 years ago, celebrated Hanukka with me in the early 1990s. I used Haluo (fame of Olympian Cat) to make a video based on a granular image from my childhood. What is worth it, I know that my mother was thrilled to participate, as she was always looking for ways to help in any aspect of my life, so I had no qualifications on that front.
The video is fine. It does not quite a cool that she and I look in the photo, although I think the quality of the image is equally mistake as AI’s vagina. I could put it aside and imagine the moment from my small perspective, thanks to the video, and it was an interesting sensation. But, whether it was quick-and-divert or just because of my own circumstances, I did not feel that this is a deep connection with my late mother. I suspect that if they try, you will feel a lot.
Just because it was a little hollow to me, it does not mean that it cannot benefit others without understanding its past. I do not believe that Ohanian is trying to replace his mother’s memory with AI filmmaker. I think he is trying to feel a little close to him.
Of course, our love of those people who have passed, is not the only thing that enhances AI. It can also increase our fear, our craving, our ability to cheat ourselves. This technique is powerful, especially when it becomes personal. But for now, it is a way for Ohanian to surface a fond memory of hugging your mother, and is very worse use for AI models.
