There are artists who, due to different circumstances, died at an early age, just when they were at the peak of their musical or acting careers. All of them went down in history as great pop culture icons who decades after their departure continue to be references for the new generations who know their legacy.
Princess Diana of Wales, Freddy Mercury, Kurt Cobain, Heat Ledger, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix, John Lennon, as well as Michael Jackson are some of the legends we would like to know what they would look like today. Fortunately (or not) Artificial Intelligence is advancing more and more and now helps us to create images of how such personalities and many more would look like if they had not died, and even how they would look through the years for those who are still alive.
For example, photographer and lawyer Alper Yesiltas turned to Artificial Intelligence to obtain images of how the great stars of film and music would look in their old age. The photographer presented his first collection titled “As If Nothing Happened.” (“As if nothing happened”), where he used different software such as AI Remini, Adobe Lightroom, and VSCO.
“With the development of AI technology, I’ve been excited for a while, thinking that ‘anything imaginable can be shown in reality,'” Yesiltas wrote about the project. “When I started playing with the technology, I saw what I could do and thought about what would make me happiest. I wanted to see some of the people I missed in front of me again, and that’s how this project came about,” the artist explained.
He also talked about what the process was like to get these legendary celebrity portraits to turn out the way he expected. “The most difficult part of the creative process for me is to make the image look ‘real’ to me. The moment I like the most is when I think the image in front of me looks very realistic as if it was taken by a photographer,” he said.
Princess Diana:
Diana Frances Spencer, Princess of Wales, was born in 1961 and died in a tragic accident in Paris at the age of 36. This is how she would look today at the age of 62.
Paul Walker
Freddie Mercury
The vocalist of Queen died at the age of 45 on November 24, 1991 due to AIDS. He would be 76 years old today.
Kurt Cobain
The leader of Nirvana died at the age of 27 in 1994. He would be 53 years old today.
Selena Quintanilla
John Lennon
Michael Jackson
The “King of Pop” died on June 25, 2009, at the age of 50 from acute propofol and benzodiazepine intoxication at his Los Angeles mansion.
Heath Ledger
On January 22, 2008, the actor remembered for his role as the Joker in The Dark Knight died of intoxication from the combined effects of powerful drugs such as oxycodone, hydrocodone, temazepam, alprazolam, diazepam, and doxylamine.
Story originally published in Spanish in Cultura Colectiva
How to Know if a Photo Is Real or AI Generated (Like That Viral Image of the Pope)