I See Dead People (part 2 of 2)
Last Sunday, we asked AI to transport 30 famous historical figures to 2025 and outfit them with contemporary clothes and hairstyles. Here at last are their identities.
Siegfried Puck-Eulenspiegel, CEO of Revivify Inc., shows a Grok-generated color photo of Otto von Bismarck in contemporary clothing—alongside an original photo of Bismarck. Puck-Eulenspiegel, a German teenager when Bismarck became chancellor in 1871, only recently discovered his own birth name via AncestryDNA. He’s enthusiastic about AI but says, “I worry whether we’re creating some sort of uncontrollable monster.”
Sunday’s “I See Dead People (part 1 of 2)” offered 30 photo-like images of historical figures in modern clothing and hairstyles, all generated by Grok (X’s generative artificial intelligence platform). That piece didn’t reveal the identities of the historical figures. Better, I thought, to let people ponder them for a while and see whether they could identify any. As promised, here are the same images, paired with actual images of those 30 figures—along with guesses by readers and some additional random observations:
#1: EMILY DICKINSON [guess: Emily Dickinson] Last week’s piece showed and discussed Lone Wolf magazine’s side-by-side of Emily Dickinson and a modernized version of Dickinson. In that case, the face from the original was transplanted nearly unchanged onto a young woman in today’s clothing and hairstyle. AI can alter the original facial expression while not sacrificing recognizability. Here, Ms. Dickinson seems more cheerful than in any existing photo that I’ve ever seen.
#2: MONA LISA [guesses: 4×Mona Lisa]
#3: KING GEORGE III [guess: Al Capone!] Both George and Capone could be dangerous when provoked.
#4: BOTTICELLI’S VENUS [guess: Helen of Troy]
#5: JULIUS CAESAR [no guesses]
#6: MARTIN VAN BUREN [no guesses] With a haircut and change of clothes, MvB goes from Dickensian stereotype to present-day corporate middle manager.
#7: WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE [no guesses] I asked Grok to portray Shakespeare as a Broadway playwright or producer. It gave me a variety of poses with fashionably rumpled jackets, ties, turtlenecks, etc. In some, he was in an office; in others he was seated in a theater—posed as if he were watching actors strutting and fretting their hour upon the stage. Here, Grok decorated the Bard’s wall with a Bayeaux Tapestry-style print—an antique in his time, as well.
#8: ALEXANDER THE GREAT [no guesses]
#9: MARIE ANTOINETTE [guesses: Catherine the Great, Thomas Jefferson] I’m guessing the TJ guess was misnumbered—and ironically funny, given that TJ’s sympathies were not with the Bourbons.]
#10: JOHN WILKES BOOTH [guesses: 2×Edgar Allan Poe, Nikola Tesla]. Booth, Poe, and—to a lesser extent—Tesla do look quite a bit alike, now that you mention it.
#11: THOMAS JEFFERSON [guesses: 4×Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, Julius Caesar]
#12: ALEXANDER GRAHAM BELL [guesses: Frederick Douglass]
#13: HARRIET TUBMAN [guess: 2×Harriet Tubman]
#14: MARY PICKFORD [no guesses] The face of “America’s Sweetheart” a century ago would still qualify for that title. Her AI makeover reminded me of Jennifer Aniston and, indeed, Aniston has also been called America’s Sweetheart.
#15: EMPRESS ELISABETH OF AUSTRIA [no guesses]
#16: HERMAN MELVILLE [guesses: A Russian—probably Tchaikovsky or perhaps Dostoyevsky, Ulysses Grant]
#17: CATHERINE THE GREAT [guess: looks like the actress who played Catherine of Aragon in “The Tudors”] Indeed, she looks a great deal like Maria Doyle Kennedy, who played Catherine of Aragon—especially when Kennedy is made up for the part. Catherine the Great’s portraits often bear a stuffy/goofy patrician look—like Margaret Dumont in a Marx Brothers film. The AI version faithfully retains her features, including the Habsburg-like jaw, but now she looks like an intimidating corporate CEO—which fits.
#18: LOUIS XIV [no guesses]
#19: QUEEN VICTORIA [guesses: 2×Queen Victoria]
#20: ANDREW JACKSON [guesses: 2×Andrew Jackson, John C. Calhoun] Jackson and Calhoun did look similar. Interesting, since Calhoun was Jackson’s first VP and, later, Jackson told him—not jokingly—“John Calhoun, if you secede from my nation, I will secede your head from the rest of your body. Interesting that Grok gave Jackson a blue-on-blue-on-blue Regis Philbin-type outfit.
#21: LIZZIE BORDEN [guesses: Lizzie Borden] Twenty-nine of my AI images were unaltered, save for adjustments in color, brightness, contrast, focus, and such. The exception was Lizzie Borden. Before I converted the image to black-and-white, Grok gave her soft, gentle, dark brown eyes, and my wife said, “Nope. The eyes aren’t crazy enough.” So I went back to the original Borden photo, copied her pale, translucent, Village of the Damned eyes and pasted them onto the AI photo. Now, you don’t want any sharp implements about.
#22: LILLIAN GISH [no guesses] One reader said she looks like Björk—and she really does! Same narrow mouth with ultra-thin lips.
#23: JAMES MADISON [guess: James Madison—over perhaps a young John Quincy Adams]
#24: QUEEN ELIZABETH I [guesses: 2×Queen Elizabeth I, 2×Queen Victoria, Queen Elizabeth II, Catherine the Great]
#25: BENJAMIN FRANKLIN [guesses: 4×Benjamin’s Franklin]
#26: KING GEORGE IV [guess: Sam Adams] George IV looks a bit like his great-great-great-great-great nephew, Prince Andrew.
#27: MATA HARI [no guesses]: Grok did an excellent job on Mata Hari—and especially her eyes. Easy to see how she might have pried state secrets from weak-willed political and military leaders.
#28: BENJAMIN DISRAELI [guesses: A shaven Abraham Lincoln] There is a bit of similarity in these two pre-eminent mid-19th century statesmen.
#29: EMPEROR FRANZ JOSEPH I [guesses: Dwight Eisenhower, Kaiser Wilhelm II] Interesting trio of kinda-look-alikes.
#30: PHARAOH RAMSES II [guess: Martin Luther King, Jr.] Fascinating erroneous guess, in that MLKJr was often compared to Moses, whose Pharaoh/nemesis may have been Ramses II. Ramses II may be my favorite AI makeover, simply because such an ancient rendering becomes such a recognizably modern, Eastern Mediterranean face.
HISTORY, LONE WOLF, ROYALTY NOW, AND ME
“I See Dead People (part 1 of 2)” described two Photoshop artists who attracted considerable attention by reoutfitting historical figures in modern garb. An unnamed Lone Wolf magazine artist (perhaps Natalia Borecka) did ten such makeovers, including Emily Dickinson. Above, you the original, with Lone Wolf’s version on the left and my AI-generated version on the right. In the second row, we see Venus from Botticelli’s “The Birth of Venus,” with Becca Segovia’s Royalty Now Studios version at left and my AI-generated version on the right. (You’ll find a vast collection of historical makeovers at RoyaltyNowStudios.com—including quite a few of the historical figures I redid.)
That was fun!
Very interesting. After the fact some of them connect with me. Benjamin Franklin especially so. Others I don't know enough about to judge in any useful way. I thought they were all very reasonable updates.
And my first thought about Ramses II was precisely that he looked like a healthy modern Eastern Mediterranean type.
This was fun. When you have time, do some others, please.