In 1996, I was home for the holidays. Just months prior, I had started working for D. E. Shaw & Co., L.P. in its Cambridge, Massachusetts office, and had endured my first encounter with a New England winter. As a child growing up in the Los Angeles area, I had always dreamed of living somewhere with traditional seasons and snow, like I had read about in so many books. By the end of my first week of gritty, grimy, dirty Boston snow, I was already sick of it, which is why I was so happy to be back in LA for the holidays.
At the time, my sister Caroline was working as a production assistant (PA) for ER, the #1 show on television. PAs are poorly paid and are the lowest ranking production staff, but the position has its perks. In this case, it was the chance for my mother and I to visit the set and meet the cast, including the show’s breakout star, a young actor named George Clooney, who was probably looking forward to the release of his first starring movie, “From Dusk Til Dawn” in less than two weeks.
It was funny observing George on the set. He was as many have since described–funny, charming, and clearly the leader of the set. That day, he was cracking jokes at the expense of an absent guest star who had gotten a bit too much plastic surgery. It was an exciting visit, and of course the highlight was my family and I posing for a photo with the principal cast members who were on set that day: George, Anthony Edwards, and Sherry Stringfield. They were all kind and gracious to the people they no doubt thought of as “Caroline’s family.”
My late mother was a bit star-struck when she met George. After being introduced, she told him, “Your eyes are so handsome!”
George smiled his $20 million smile and replied, “You must have been drinking, Mrs. Yeh.”
We took a photo and returned home.
Now this will require an explanation for the young. In 1996, digital cameras were rare, and the few that were available were pretty low quality. So we took the photo with what was known as a “point-and-shoot” camera, with autofocus, and physical film. To focus an autofocus camera, you needed to hold down the shutter partway, allow it to focus, and then snap the photograph.
When you finished shooting a roll of film, you would take it to your local drugstore to be developed, or if you were particularly impatient and rich, a one-hour photo store.
Yes, unless you took a Polaroid instant photo, you had to wait hours to days to see how your photo turned out. A week or two later, we discovered to our dismay that the photo we had taken was out of focus:
It’s recognizable as the ER cast, but it was still a massive disappointment. And of course, there was no easy way to fix the issue. Secret agencies in movies might be able to take a blurry photograph and yell, “Enhance!”, but not the Yeh family. And so I gave up on ever fixing the photograph, and largely forgot about it.
Fast forward nearly 30 years.
As AI increases in power, much that once seemed impossible for the average person is suddenly in reach. So I went digging around for that old photograph to see if AI could salvage it. To do this, I used my free ChatGPT account, which is available to anyone with internet access.
I uploaded the blurry photo and typed in the following prompt:
“This is a photograph taken in January 1996 from the set of the television show ER. The people in the photograph are, from left to right, actor George Clooney, actor Anthony Edwards, my mother Grace Yeh, actress Sherry Stringfield, my sister Caroline Yeh, and me, author and investor Chris Yeh. The poster behind George Clooney reads, “DON’T CREATE A SMOKESCREEN BETWEEN YOU AND YOUR FRIENDS.” This photograph is out of focus. Please create an in-focus version of this photograph. Let me know if I can provide additional materials that will help.”
A minute or two later, ChatGPT provided this photo:
The results are, frankly, amazing. Likely due to the massive numbers of photos taken of them in the past, George Clooney, Anthony Edwards, and Sherry Stringfield look very much like themselves. My mother also looks accurate. But my sister’s facial features are off, and the AI has mistaken my glasses for crow’s feet (which I don’t even have today, nearly 30 years later).
So I asked ChatGPT to iterate:
“Can you redo this photograph, but add glasses to Chris Yeh? You can use a more recent reference photograph of Chris Yeh to help. I am also attaching a reference photo for Caroline Yeh’s facial features; she is the person in the middle.”
This produced the following:
Well, my sister and I look much better, but now George Clooney looks like his less-handsome cousin. I tried to correct the issue with another prompt:
“This is looking good, but can you use the version of George Clooney from the previous version?”
Honestly, I think ChatGPT just gave me the same darn photo again.
So I decided to do things the old-fashioned way. I used MS Paint to combine the improved versions of my sister and I with the original enhanced versions of George, Anthony, my mom, and Sherry:
Not perfect, but it will do!
So what does it all mean, besides the fact that I now have better proof that I once met George Clooney?
First, AI gives all of us what would have seemed like superpowers, both to a previous generation, or even our past selves from a couple of years ago.
Second, having superpowers is not the same thing as being omnipotent. I couldn’t get ChatGPT to give me a photo with the best versions of George Clooney, my sister, and me, which seems like a very simple request. The best solution still required a bit of that human touch.
Third, AI can help our lives in unexpected ways. You just have to have the imagination and willingness to try. Happy Holidays!