{"id":112516,"date":"2025-05-18T19:52:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T19:52:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112516\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T19:52:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T19:52:10","slug":"could-ai-help-elderly-people-and-refugees-reconstruct-unrecorded-pasts-science-and-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/112516\/","title":{"rendered":"Could AI help elderly people and refugees reconstruct unrecorded pasts? | Science and Technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

In 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe, as a record 1.3 million people<\/a>, mostly Syrians fleeing civil war, sought asylum, Pau Aleikum Garcia was in Athens, helping those arriving in the Greek capital after a perilous sea journey.<\/p>\n

The then 25-year-old Spanish volunteer arranged housing for refugees in abandoned facilities like schools and libraries, and set up community kitchens, language classes and art activities.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was kind of a massive cascade of people,\u201d Garcia recalls.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy own memory of that time is oddly patchy,\u201d he admits. Though there was one encounter that stood out.<\/p>\n

In one of those schools in Athens\u2019 Exarcheia neighbourhood, where refugees painted the external wall to illustrate their memories of their journeys, Garcia met a Syrian woman in her late 70s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not afraid of being a refugee. I have lived all my life. I\u2019m happy with what I have lived,\u201d he recalls her telling him. \u201cI\u2019m afraid that my grandkids will be refugees for all their life.\u201d<\/p>\n

When he tried to reassure her that they would find a place to start anew, she protested: \u201cNo, no, I\u2019m worried, because when my grandkids grow [up] and they ask themselves, \u2018Where do I come from?\u2019 they won\u2019t be able to answer that question.\u201d<\/p>\n

The woman told him how, during the family\u2019s journey to Greece, all but one of their photo albums were lost.<\/p>\n

Now, she said, all the memories of their lives in Syria existed only in her and her husband\u2019s minds, unrecorded and unrecoverable for the next generation.<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticA screening of the Synthetic Memories project\u2019s reconstructed memories in Barcelona in May 2024 [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]
\nConnecting generations<\/p>\n

The woman\u2019s story stayed with Garcia after he returned to Barcelona and his work as cofounder of the design studio, Domestic Data Streamers (DDS).<\/p>\n

Over the years, the studio has grown into a 30-person team of experts in varied disciplines such as psychology, architecture, cognitive science, journalism and design. The studio has collaborated with diverse institutions such as museums, prisons and churches, as well as the likes of the United Nations, and uses technology to bring \u201cemotions and humanity\u201d to data visualisation.<\/p>\n

Then, in around 2019, with the rise of generative artificial intelligence \u2013 a model of machine learning that uses algorithms to create new content from data scraped from the internet \u2013 the team began to explore image-generating technology, following the release of ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

As they did, Garcia thought of the grandmother from Syria and how this technology might help someone like her by constructing images based on memories.<\/p>\n

He believes that memories \u2013 captured through records like photographs \u2013 play an integral role in connecting generations.<\/p>\n

\u201cMemories are the architects of who we are. \u2026 It\u2019s a big part of how social identities are built,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

He also likes to cite Montserrat Roig, a Catalan author, who wrote that the biggest act of love is to remember something.<\/p>\n

But in the past, people had fewer opportunities to document their lives than their mobile phone-wielding contemporaries, he says. Many experiences have been omitted or erased from collective memory due to lack of access, persecution, censorship or marginalisation.<\/p>\n

So with this in mind, in 2022, Garcia and his team launched the Synthetic Memories project<\/a> to use AI to generate photographic representations of memories that were lost, due to missing photos, for instance, or never recorded in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there was an eureka moment,\u201d Garcia says of the evolution of the idea. \u201cI\u2019ve always been intrigued by how documentaries reconstruct the past \u2026 our goal and approach were more focused on the subjective and personal side, trying to capture the emotional layers of memory.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Garcia, the chance to recover such memories is an important act in reclaiming one\u2019s past. \u201cThe fact that you have an image that tells this happened to me, this is my memory, and this is shown and other people can see it, is also a way to say to you, \u2018Yes, this happened\u2019. It\u2019s a way of saying, of having more dignity about the part of your history that has not been depicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticAn interviewer and prompter with DDS create a memory during the project\u2019s pilot phase in December 2022 [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]
\nBuilding memories<\/p>\n

To create a synthetic memory, DDS uses open-source image-generating AI systems such as DALL-E 2 and Flux, while the team is developing its own tool.<\/p>\n

The process starts with an interviewer asking a subject to recall their earliest memory. They explore various narratives as people recount their life stories before picking the one they think can be best encapsulated in an image.<\/p>\n

The interviewer works with a prompter \u2013 someone trained in the syntax that the AI uses to create visuals \u2013 who inputs specific words to build the image from the details described by the interviewee.<\/p>\n

Nearly everything, such as hairstyles, clothing, and furniture, is recreated as accurately as possible. However, figures themselves are usually depicted from behind or, if faces are shown, with a degree of blurriness.<\/p>\n

This is intentional. \u201cWe want to be very clear that this is a synthetic memory and this is not real photography,\u201d says Garcia. This is partly because they want to ensure their generated images don\u2019t add to the proliferation of fake photos on the internet.<\/p>\n

The resulting images \u2013 usually two or three from each session, which can last up to an hour \u2013 can appear dreamlike and undefined.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we know, memory is very, very, very fragile and full of imperfections,\u201d Garcia explains. \u201cThat was the other reason why we wanted a model that could be full of imperfections and also a bit fragile, so it\u2019s a good demonstration of how our memory works.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticAn AI-generated image of a memory belonging to Carmen, now in her 90s, of visiting her father, who was a prisoner during the Spanish Civil War [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]<\/p>\n

Garcia\u2019s team found that people who took part in the project said they felt a stronger connection to less detailed images, their suggestive nature allowing for their imagination to fill in the blanks. The higher the resolution, the more someone focuses on the details, losing that emotional connection to the image, Airi Dordas, the project\u2019s lead, explains.<\/p>\n

The team first trialled this technology with their grandparents. The experience was moving, Garcia says, and one that grew into medical trials to determine whether synthetic memories can be used as an augmentation tool in reminiscence therapy for dementia sufferers.<\/p>\n

From there, the team went on to work with Bolivian and Korean communities in Brazil to tell their stories of migration, before partnering with Barcelona\u2019s city council to document local memories. The sessions were open to the public and held last summer at the Design Museum in Barcelona, generating more than 300 memories.<\/p>\n

Some wanted to work through traumatic experiences, like one woman who was abused by a relative who avoided jail and wanted to recreate a memory of him in court to share with her family. Others recalled moments from their childhood, like 105-year-old Pepita, who recreated the day she saw a train for the first time. Couples came to relive shared experiences.<\/p>\n

There was always a moment, Ainoa Pubill Unzeta, who carried out interviews in Barcelona, says, \u201cwhen people actually saw a picture that they would relate to, you could feel it \u2026 you can see it\u201d. For some, it was just a smile; others cried. For her, this was confirmation that the image was done well.<\/p>\n

One of the first memories Garcia recorded during their pilot sessions was that of Carmen, now in her 90s. She remembers going up to a stranger\u2019s balcony as a child, her mother having paid the owners to let them in, because it looked into the courtyard of the jail where her father, a doctor for the Republican front during the Spanish Civil War, was being held. This was the only way the family could see him from his cell window.<\/p>\n

By incredible coincidence, Carmen\u2019s son was employed in the same prison as a social worker decades later, but neither son nor mother knew that. When the whole family came to see an installation at the Public Office of Synthetic Memories last year, her son recognised the prison immediately from his mother\u2019s reconstruction. \u201cIt was a kind of closing the loop \u2026 it was beautiful,\u201d Garcia says.<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticAn AI-generated image of 105-year-old Pepita\u2019s memory of seeing a locomotive for the first time in 1925. The smoke and noise scared her, and the memory has stayed etched in her mind [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]
\nClandestine assemblies<\/p>\n

The team was particularly interested in telling stories of civic activists who have played a key role in different social movements in the city over the last 50 years, including those concerning LGBTQ and workers\u2019 rights. While initially the focus was not on the dictatorship era, it \u201cnaturally brought us to engage with people who, by the historical circumstances, were activists against the regime,\u201d Dordas explains.<\/p>\n

One of them was 74-year-old Jose Carles Vallejo Calderon.<\/p>\n

Born in Barcelona in 1950 to Republican parents who faced oppression under General Francisco Franco<\/a>, Vallejo came of age during one of Europe\u2019s longest dictatorships, which lasted from 1939 to 1975. During the civil war of 1936-39, and following the defeat of the Republican forces by Franco\u2019s Nationalists, enforced disappearances, forced labour, torture and extrajudicial killings claimed the lives of more than 100,000 people<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Vallejo became involved in opposition to the fascist regime first at university, where he attempted to organise a democratic student union, and then as a young worker at Barcelona\u2019s SEAT automobile factory.<\/p>\n

He recalls an atmosphere of fear, with most people terrified of speaking out against the authoritarian government. \u201cThat fear sprang from the terrible defeat in the Spanish Civil War and from the many deaths that occurred during the war, but also from the harsh repression from the post-war period up to the end of the dictatorship,\u201d he explains.<\/p>\n

Informants were everywhere, and the circle of trusted individuals was small. \u201cAs you can imagine, this is no way to live \u2013 this was living in darkness, silence, fear, and repression,\u201d Vallejo says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were few of us \u2013 very few \u2013 who dared to move from silence to activism, which involved many risks.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vallejo was imprisoned in 1970 for attempting to set up a labour union among SEAT employees, spending half a year in jail, including 20 days being tortured by Barcelona\u2019s secret police. After another arrest in late 1971 and the prosecution demanding 20 years for what were then considered crimes of association, organisation and propaganda, Vallejo crossed the border with France in January 1972. He ultimately gained political asylum in Italy, where he lived in exile before returning to Spain following the first limited amnesty of 1976, which granted pardons to political prisoners after Franco\u2019s death in 1975.<\/p>\n

Today, Vallejo dedicates his time to human rights activism. He presides over the Catalan Association of Former Political Prisoners of Francoism, created in the final years of the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticAn AI-generated image of a clandestine meeting between workers of Barcelona\u2019s SEAT automobile factory during Franco\u2019s dictatorship in Spain [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]<\/p>\n

He learned about synthetic memories through Iridia, a human rights organisation that collaborated with DDS to help visualise memories of police abuse victims during the regime in a central Barcelona police station.<\/p>\n

Vallejo was drawn to the project, curious about how the technology might be applied to capturing resistance activities too dangerous to record during Franco\u2019s rule.<\/p>\n

In 1970, SEAT workers organised clandestine breakfasts in the woods of Vallvidrera. On Sunday mornings, disguised as hikers, they would make their way through the dense forests surrounding the Catalan capital to discuss the struggle against the dictatorship.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think I must have been to more than 10 or 15 of these forest gatherings,\u201d Vallejo recalls. Other times, they met in churches. No records of these exist.<\/p>\n

Vallejo\u2019s synthetic memory of these meetings is in black and white. The image is vague, almost like someone has taken an eraser to it to blur the details. But it is still possible to make out the scene: a crowd of people gathered in a forest. Some sit, others stand beneath a canopy of trees.<\/p>\n

Looking at the image, Vallejo says he felt transported to the clandestine assemblies in the Barcelona woods, where as many as 50 or 60 people would gather in a tense atmosphere.<\/p>\n

\u201cI found myself truly immersed in the image,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was like entering a kind of time tunnel,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Vallejo suffered memory loss around the ordeal of his arrests, imprisonment and torture.<\/p>\n

The process of creating the image provided \u201ca feeling \u2013 not exactly of relief \u2013 but rather of reconciling memory with the past and perhaps also of filling that void created by selective amnesia, which results from complicated, traumatic, and above all, distant experiences\u201d. He found the reconstruction a \u201cvaluable experience\u201d that helped him process some of these events.<\/p>\n

\"SyntheticGarcia at a synthetic memory session in a nursing home in Barcelona in April 2023 [Courtesy of Domestic Data Streamers]
\n\u2018We are not reconstructing the past\u2019<\/p>\n

Emphasising that memory is subjective, Garcia says, \u201cOne of the things that we are kind of drawing a very big red line about is historical reconstruction.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is partly due to the drawbacks of AI, which reinforces cultural and other biases in the data it draws from.<\/p>\n

David Leslie, director of ethics and responsible innovation research at the Alan Turing Institute, the United Kingdom centre for data science and AI, cautions that using data that was initially biased against marginalised groups could create revisionist histories or false memories for those communities. Nor can \u201csimply generating something from AI\u201d help to remedy or reclaim historical narratives, he insists.<\/p>\n

For DDS, \u201cIt is never about the bigger story. We are not reconstructing the past,\u201d Garcia explains.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen we talk about history, we talk about one truth that somehow we are committed to,\u201d he elaborates. But while synthetic memories can depict a part of the human experience that history books cannot, these memories come from the individual, not necessarily what transpired, he underlines.<\/p>\n

The team believes synthetic memories could not only help communities whose memories are at risk but also create dialogue between cultures and generations.<\/p>\n

They plan to set up \u201cemergency\u201d memory clinics in places where cultural heritage is in danger of being eroded by natural disasters, such as in southern Brazil, which was last year hit by floods. There are also hopes to make their finished tool freely available to nursing homes.<\/p>\n

But Garcia wonders what place the project could have in a future where there is an \u201cover-registration\u201d of everything that happens. \u201cI have 10 images of my father when he was a kid,\u201d he says. \u201cI have over 200 when I was a kid. But my friend, of her daughter, [has] 25,000, and she\u2019s five years old!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the problem of memory image will be another one, which will be that we are \u2026 [overwhelmed] and we cannot find the right image to tell us the story,\u201d he muses.<\/p>\n

Yet in the present moment, Vallejo believes the project has a role to play in helping younger generations understand past injustices. Forgetting serves no purpose for activists like himself, he believes, while memory is like \u201ca weapon for the future\u201d.<\/p>\n

Instead of trying to numb the past, \u201cI think it is more therapeutic \u2013 both collectively and individually \u2013 to remember rather than to forget.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In 2015, at the height of the refugee crisis in Europe, as a record 1.3 million people, mostly…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":112517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3163],"tags":[323,1942,42521,299,126,1450,2348,8272,104,53,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-112516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-arts-and-culture","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-features","13":"tag-greece","14":"tag-history","15":"tag-science-and-technology","16":"tag-spain","17":"tag-technology","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114530586050761263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=112516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/112517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=112516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=112516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=112516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}