To edit or not to edit? Disclosure is the answer

Salt Palace 2026

In today's news, the prompter and motion capture provider of AI creation, Tilly Norwood, is receiving death threats. An interesting point the prompter makes is that "Tilly is famous. I'm not. That's wonderful. Fame is a horrible thing." Death threats definitely add credence to the "fame is a horrible thing" posit. Norwood's prompter also makes the point that since the AI is the famous one, she doesn't have to do things like Botox to preserve youthfulness. Altering one's appearance was a recent discussion I had with Ilya at The Family Vault (an AI Agent and cloud storage) booth at 2026 RootsTech. Ilya questioned why disclose using AI for photo regeneration when people edit photos with Photoshop or even that many women wear make-up and that's editing their looks? I've been mulling this over ever since RootsTech! In the Genealogy Community, it is actually an asset to be older. When I became active in genealogy at age 31, I actually had genealogists be dismissive towards me due to my youth. Some genealogists wear make-up and some don't; it's not a field where appearance is judged like it is with celebrities. I have noticed that make-up tends to help when on Zoom meetings or on stage because the bright lights tend to wash out facial features. Unlike with AI use, there's no need to disclose I'm wearing make-up because it's quite obvious and visible. Of course I didn't think of this at the time I was chatting with Ilya - the case for disclosure lies with whether editing can be detected or not. Make-up is visible. Tinting old photos is visible. AI photo regeneration is not visible (at least to the naked eye). Read more here on the Coalition for Responsible AI in Genealogy's "Protecting Trust in Historical Images" position statement.

"The Thinking Game" is a must watch for AI and Genetic Genealogy enthusiasts

https://youtu.be/d95J8yzvjbQ?si=mrHOHVrLm41B9Bre
 

The COVID-19 pandemic brought into sharp focus for me how precious time really is. You cannot buy more time no matter how wealthy you are; so at some point, you need to realize this fact and spend the time you have as wisely as you can. One area where I feel strongly about this is with movies and TV. I'm always telling my friends, "You won't be on your death bed saying, "I wish I had watched more news." I especially detest watching movies or shows that I feel were a waste of my time and grey matter. Due to my mind-shift, I struggle to find something worth watching during air travel. On a recent United flight, I was lucky to find "The Thinking Game" in their library. Definitely worth every second of my time to watch! The film centers on the journey of Demis Hassabis, from childhood through to winning the Nobel Prize for creating the AI AlphaFold agent which solved the "protein-folding problem". Not only does the documentary include much of the evolution of artificial intelligence and the issues surrounding it, it also shows how Hassabis had the goal from a young age that AI could be used to solve human issues and ailments. "The Thinking Game" is available to watch on Prime and for free on YouTube.

No copyrighting AI generated art

 On Monday, February 23, 2026, I wrote about artificial intelligence’s impact on human created art and how I think the onslaught of AI art slop will eventually drive people back to human created art. Well…that prediction is

already coming true; on March 1st, a local friend posted on Facebook looking for a graphic artist that did NOT use AI. Another win for human created art occurred today when the Supreme Court rejected a case of man seeking to copyright AI generated art. This rejection upholds a lower court ruling that denied the copyright. AI art will continue to improve and be used en masse, but there’s still value in human created art which will continue to grow.