Old Falsehoods, New Tricks
👉 This is part of Truth Hunters
Today’s innovations are putting the truth in our hands like never before, with accessible and and accurate tools. We’re digging up the past and shedding new light on it.
Evidence A: Family Skeletons Exit the Closet
Am I related to royalty? Do I have ‘exotic’ roots? Do I have distant relations flung across the globe? The frivolous game of the home genealogy kit got the likes of 23&Me on the top of the Christmas list during the 2010s as an appetite for unearthing our personal stories exploded. But DNA tests hold powerful truths that we’re not always ready for - secret families, different fathers, confused ethnicities, IVF mix-ups and even cold crimes reopened.
Evidence B: Old Masters Meet AI
Brush direction analysis revealed this Max Pechstein painting to be counterfeit
Forged artworks and antiquities are common in museums and private collections. Carbon dating, X-rays and chemical analysis have typically been the tools of the fraud-fighting trade. But now AI is taking it to the next level. It’s convenient, cost-effective and reliable, managing to even identify the works of career fraudsters and solve the 40 year old art mystery of the authenticity of a Renaissance Raphael painting.
