05/29/2026
I don’t know about you, but I’ve been noticing an increase in the usage of AI in the last year in the historical sphere. One of the most disturbing trends I’ve been noticing lately is in the “cleaning up” of historical photographs.
This post is about a massive Nova Scotia history group called Nova Scotia History⛵️ that has been consistently generating AI versions of historical photographs and are passing them off as true/cleaned up version. The admin says that they are only adding colour and enhancing details that are already there, saving the time it would have taken them to manually restore the image.
In fact, what they really are doing is creating fake new images that are being masqueraded as historical, and this is harmful to researchers and anyone interested in understanding our history. These new images are inventing details, adding in entire people or buildings or landscapes or architectural elements that simply did not exist. They are adding in shop signs for companies that never were or garbling existing text so that it is unreadable.
What appears at first glance to be a freshened up image may be rife with historical inaccuracies and they are often not labeled as AI creations. The poster mentions that they carefully vet each photo after they run it through AI, however a quick glance at some of the examples I’m posting below will show how inaccurate these images are. They cannot be taken as historical records. Not to mention the admin in question is charging money for their “restoration” photo service (consisting of running your photo through generative AI).
To say a map would have been lost if we didn’t have this new AI technology to restore is entirely false - we have things called books or archives that contain higher quality versions of a lot of these images. We have experts we consult to help us source accurate historical materials (shout out to the Nova Scotia Archives or your local museum with researchers on staff). It may take longer to locate an image that answers your question, but we can be confident in what we’re looking at being correct.
“If we don’t use it, this stuff disappears for good.” I’d argue what is being done right now making it more difficult to do history research. These images will turn up years later, out of context and taken at face value. Why can’t I find any reference to A.R. Mack’s Stables Livery? It should be right on Main Street in Yarmouth according to this “historical photo”.
This post is meant as a caution, what may seem like a fun activity - to spruce up old photos - can be detrimental long term and if you have an interest in preserving our stories and our past, this is something you should be aware of.
