Artificial intelligence is now being used to bring photos to life. Turning even ancient images into short videos. 

Known as Deep Nostalgia, this is a service offered by DNA and genealogy company MyHeritage. The free service uses artificial intelligence to animate your photos by adding head movement, flicks of the eye, blinks and more. 

The program is essentially designed to enable people to see long deceased loved ones in more than just a still image. 

The sentiment is lovely, though the results obviously vary depending on the quality of the original photo and things like the angle and the pose.

We noted for example that with some of the images we tried the AI had trouble with head turns and distortion on things like people's ears. There's no denying though that when it works it's incredible. 

People are using the AI not just to post photos of their loved ones brought to life again but also uploading ancient photos of famous figures to see what happens. 

Charles Dickens has had the Deep Nostalgia treatment, as has Beethoven, Alan Turing, Charles Darwin, Abraham Lincoln and more.

Interestingly it also works well with old paintings and sketches as well. 

People are posting plenty of interesting ones on Twitter with the #DeepNostalgia hashtag. 

If you're interested in trying the AI out it's easy to do as well. You need a free account at MyHeritage first, but then you can upload a photo to the tool here. The tool then takes your photo and automatically applies artificial intelligence to work its magic. You can then download a video file or share the results on social media. 

If you're worried about privacy, it's worth noting that the site says "photos uploaded without completing signup are automatically deleted to protect your privacy." The FAQs also promise that the photos won't be sold to third parties either.