If you're a long-time reader of Time Extension, then you'll be aware that we're not entirely thrilled by how AI is being used right now.
While the technology has massive potential benefits in the world of science, research and medicine, it seems that the companies peddling it at the moment are more concerned with giving people the chance to create deepfake slop videos of celebrities stealing chicken than they are about curing cancer or making our lives better.
It seems we now have another annoyance to add to the list, and that's 'updating' ('vandalising' might be more accurate) old photos relating to video game history.
As spotted by VGDensetsu, someone at Taito has taken a vintage black and white photo of Japanese players surrounding a Darius arcade cabinet and run it through a GenAI slop machine, producing a colour image that changes several aspects of the original.
For example, the game's title is changed to 'WANUS', the player sitting on the left has an almost entirely different face, and the guy in the bottom left is wearing a different denim jacket. The fact that this has been produced and promoted by an official Taito social media account makes it even more worrying; many will no doubt assume this is a legitimate photo, given the source.
The photo is dated 1986, and was posted by Taito to celebrate the unveiling of the game at the 24th AM Show, held on October 7th and 8th, 1986.
There will no doubt be several AI Bros who look at the 'new' image and think it's an amazing improvement, but those who actually value video game history are up in arms at the prospect of vintage photos being given the same treatment.
"It's been altered in so many ways beyond 'colourisation'," says comic artist Jamie McKelvie. "The kid has an entirely different face! AI is being used in so many ways to undermine history, information, even reality. How are we going to undo all of this?"
Comic book legend and former video game journalist Kieron Gillen agrees. "This isn't colourisation in any meaningful way. It's an image-as-prompt, and that's especially deceptive when applied to history."
"I knew it, but this really makes it so real: it's going to be such a pain in the ass going forward," adds History of Hyrule, Zelda Archivist. "Research and art preservation [are] going to be such a nightmare."
Fellow BlueSky user Jordan Sorcery feels this could be something of a turning point for the web in general.
"This kind of thing (and the breakdown of search engines) is going to be remembered as the same kind of cultural tragedy as the BBC binning a load of their archive in the 60s. Assuming society still exists after all this."