Philemon Wright and Family - using AI

AI images - are they useful or misleading

Philemon Wright and Wright's Town in 1830. AI image created from his portrait by John James and the painting of his town by James D. Duncan.

THE advent of AI has brought about a debate in the academic community about the use of AI images. [1] [2]

As a lifelong photographer, I have participated in many a lively discussion with other photographers about the use of Photoshop. The debates ran the gamut from the purists who said that any use of Photoshop creates a fake image, and the pragmatists who said that it's just a tool for improving images. When photography went digital, the debate ended because every digital camera altered each image depending on the settings of their camera. The pragmatists won the debate because the purists could only be left to their film or to use the RAW settings of their digital cameras and processing them ... in ... Photoshop ...

Full disclosure: Since the digital age began, I have used Photoshop. So now that AI is so commonly used to create images, I decided to see if I could produce AI images of my favourite subjects.

I wanted to accomplish this in a way that would render faithful images of Philemon Wright and family in actual historical settings. If I do say so myself, I think the results succeeded quite well.

As to the ethics of the thing, I submit that it is better that I generate and publish some images before any unwelcome, distorted images are produced. I will always identify the results as AI-produced and embed the metadata into the file, and I hope others will label them as well when they use them.

Here is the gallery, with more to follow in the future:

Philemon & Abigail Wright 1828, AI image

Philemon Wright Jr. in 1820, AI-generated portrait created using the portraits of his parents.

Philemon Sr. and Philemon Jr. in the Wright Store-Tavern Office at the Chaudière Falls, AI image.

Andrew Leamy and his mill in 1853, AI image.

Philemon & Tiberius Wright, London Oxford, Martin Ebert & John Turner on Columbo 1806, AI image.

Philemon & Tiberius Wright, London Oxford, Martin Ebert & John Turner on Columbo 1806, AI image.

---

[1] An excellent, scholarly video was created by James Tanner, Brigham Young University professor, entitled AI Image Generation vs Protecting Trust in Historical Images – James Tanner (7 Dec 2025). Click here for the video.

[2] Codes are being developed by academics to ensure that AI is not being used to misinform or "fake" history. The underlying principles can be exemplified in a very useful website entitled The Coalition for Responsible Use of AI in Genealogy. Its website can be found by clicking here.