A major new AI capability

[coombs]

Passenger lists before 1900 can contain pretty basic info and not enough to ID a person even with a less common name. So you could descend from a "William Taylor" who emigrated to Australia in about 1855, and the AI could come up with a likely candidate for 1855, aged 25. And all is given is William Taylor, aged 25, from England, so could be any William Taylor. If the person's ancestor was called Marmaduke Bracegirdle, then it probably is the right person. 

Assisted immigration records can contain more info, and of course convicts.

[Zaphod99]

It was me who started this particular topic and I have put a calendar reminder for February 2029 to have another read of it, and I implore anyone who has contributed to do the same.

I particularly note the comment from somebody saying that machines accessing subscription databases will be restricted, but I think by then it will be very difficult for systems like ancestry and my heritage and others to actually tell the difference. Read about the concept of Turing machines.

Zaph

[degenerate]

Passenger lists before 1900 can contain pretty basic info and not enough to ID a person even with a less common name. So you could descend from a "William Taylor" who emigrated to Australia in about 1855, and the AI could come up with a likely candidate for 1855, aged 25. And all is given is William Taylor, aged 25, from England, so could be any William Taylor. If the person's ancestor was called Marmaduke Bracegirdle, then it probably is the right person. 

A name and age, as you say, are not unique pairings but people happily adopt those records when in need. On top of this is "survivor bias" which afflicts genealogy more generally, i.e. your research tends to be biased by the things you can find. AI has that baked-in in spades.

I often operate close to the 'Marmaduke Bracegirdle' rarity of names but that brings with it another bias. As people perceive a name to be exceedingly rare, they don't question it at all when they find it - it must be the same person. So what we might find is that Marmaduke was a notable family figure in the 18th century and that his name has been propagated down the generations sporadically, such that you'll find distant cousins of the same name, of similar age and similar birth location. The naďve genealogist wades in and conflates these cousins as a singular identity.

I have encountered a couple of instances where people have conflated distinct people with relatively rare names, where one was a victim of WW1 and the other not. A date-of-death is entered and that line extinguished - job done. Whereas in reality the chap is alive and well in Tooting in the 1950s.

[coombs]

Passenger lists before 1900 can contain pretty basic info and not enough to ID a person even with a less common name. So you could descend from a "William Taylor" who emigrated to Australia in about 1855, and the AI could come up with a likely candidate for 1855, aged 25. And all is given is William Taylor, aged 25, from England, so could be any William Taylor. If the person's ancestor was called Marmaduke Bracegirdle, then it probably is the right person. 

A name and age, as you say, are not unique pairings but people happily adopt those records when in need. On top of this is "survivor bias" which afflicts genealogy more generally, i.e. your research tends to be biased by the things you can find. AI has that baked-in in spades.

I often operate close to the 'Marmaduke Bracegirdle' rarity of names but that brings with it another bias. As people perceive a name to be exceedingly rare, they don't question it at all when they find it - it must be the same person. So what we might find is that Marmaduke was a notable family figure in the 18th century and that his name has been propagated down the generations sporadically, such that you'll find distant cousins of the same name, of similar age and similar birth location. The naďve genealogist wades in and conflates these cousins as a singular identity.

I have encountered a couple of instances where people have conflated distinct people with relatively rare names, where one was a victim of WW1 and the other not. A date-of-death is entered and that line extinguished - job done. Whereas in reality the chap is alive and well in Tooting in the 1950s.

I have often found 2 cousins of the same name, and similar ages. Can lead to confusion.

But if you did find a Marmaduke Bracegirdle was not the same person you thought, as you say they may have been cousins of similar ages, and if the father of one of them is as yet unknown, it may have been a brother or cousin of the other Marmaduke Bracegirdle whose dad is know, so may help further.

I see you are researching the surname Pawling and its many, many variants. I once had an eye on a Rebecca Palding born in 1704 in Norwich, married name Harbord, until I found their daughter Elizabeth born 1733 was a namesake cousin of the correct Elizabeth Harbord who was my ancestor born 1731. I had found Rebecca may have descended from a Christopher Pawling/Palding of Hickling whose son was apprenticed in Norwich in the 1660s, whose forename was the same as Rebecca's paternal grandfather.

[degenerate]

I have often found 2 cousins of the same name, and similar ages. Can lead to confusion.

Sure, that happens all the time. The distinction that I'm pointing out here is that a very rare name has been seen to lead the unwary (or AI) to rule out any consideration for it being the wrong person. It is judged a virtual impossibility for it to be anything other than one person. The naďve assessment of rarity is flawed because they are blind to the prospect of correlation with prior (unseen or undocumented) generations.

[Biggles50]

Ancestry’s Thrulines is pretty weird without AI.

I fail to see how a flawed system can be corrected simply by the use of AI.

1st Law of Computing:- Rubbish in = Rubbish out.

[IanStB]

Ancestry’s Thrulines is pretty weird without AI.

Aye, it effectively treats family trees as accurate and thereby suggests 'hints' that are incorrect. Easy to control for if you recognise what is happening but it looks like quite a few people don't.

[Andrew Tarr]

Lots of rubbish created by AI instead of humans on Ancestry, I suspect. 

The clue is in the title: Artificial Intelligence generates artificial intelligence (in the military sense).
However we have very recently been introduced by our daughter to the colourising ability of ChatGPT (for one - others can do it).  If you can provide it with a decent sharp b&w photograph it can make it more lifelike, as we are used to seeing now.  It's not much good for retrieving indistinct pictures, the result can look like a different set of people.

I think I have posted before our 1865 four-generations picture printed from the original glass plate, so very sharp, although the baby moved its head slightly.  AI has turned it into colour which I find convincing, tho it is obviously guesswork.  I suspect it may make deductions from the shades of grey, knowing how panchromatic film would have treated them.  It has also unfuzzed the baby's head.  The old lady was born in 1782.

[Treetotal]

Having been a restorer and colourist on here for 20 years, I am in danger of losing my hobby to Aartificial Iintelligence I'm afraid. However, AI won't allow you to change the colours of the outfits and won't know if Granny's eyes were Blue, Green, Grey or Brown.
It is affecting the Photo Restoration Board as the number of requests has drastically reduced, there may still be posters out there who prefer the "Hands on approach" but I won't hold my breath.
I may have to dust off my paints, Brushes and Easel 
Carol