Synthetic Memories: Generating the past

New technology uses AI to take the oral histories of early-stage dementia patients and turn them into memories.

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Synthetic Memories: Generating the past
Graphic: Vicky Leta

These days, we’ve got photographic evidence of our memories just about everywhere we turn. But what about the memories that can’t be called up at the touch of a button or the turn of a page? That’s the case for entire older generations, and one global research project is using artificial intelligence to create images of the memories of early-stage dementia patients. It’s a futuristic technology that recalls the past. (Presented by Deloitte).

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Featuring

Heather Landy is an executive editor of Quartz and co-host of the Quartz Obsession podcast. She is obsessed with bank crises, workplace psychology, and Bono.

Pau Garcia is a founding partner of Domestic Data Streamers in Barcelona. He also teaches at the Barcelona School of Economics and School of Design and Engineering.

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Show notes

The Synthetic Memories project, Domestic Data Streamers

Two images generated from the project, using DALL-E:

An image generated by the Synthetic Memory project of schoolchildren in Bolivia in 1995
An image generated by the Synthetic Memory project of schoolchildren in Bolivia in 1995
Image: Domestic Data Streamers
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An image generated by the Synthetic Memory project, Barcelona 1960
An image generated by the Synthetic Memory project, Barcelona 1960
Image: Domestic Data Streamers

Credits

This episode of the Quartz Obsession was produced by Chad Chenail, with additional support from executive editor Susan Howson and head of video Garth Bardsley. Our theme music is by Taka Yasuzawa and Alex Suguira. This episode was recorded at G/O Media headquarters in New York and in Barcelona.