Colorized footage of New York in 1911 must be seen to be believed

The weird and wonderful world of the internet is clearly a fascinating realm to explore - especially with the addition of some pretty high-spec artificial intelligence technology making its way onto the scene.

Over the past few months, AI has pretty much taken over the web with fans always eager to see whatever new phenomenon the tech throws our way whether that's depicting what dead celebrities would look like if they were still alive today or imagining the 'average fan' for each genre of music.

Now, for something far less divisive and a whole lot more historical, AI has been able to incredibly colorize footage of New York in 1911 which has to be seen to be believed.

YouTube/Denis Shiryaev

We've all wondered what the world looked like decades before color photography was even invented but now, thanks to the help of technological advancements, we can.

People can now see footage of The Big Apple in all of its technicolour glory from over a century ago.

The original film was taken by he Swedish company, Svenska Biografteatern, on a trip to the US and was later cut down by YouTuber Guy Jones in 2018 and slowed down to give off a more natural pace with added sound for ambiance.

Check out A Trip Through New York City below:

Now, while the edited footage is no doubt an amazing insight into the buzzing city from over one hundred years ago - it's missing one pivotal element: color.

However, thanks to another fellow YouTuber, the footage has since been upscaled and brought into the 21st century after being colorized using neural networks.

The YouTuber, Denis Shiryaev, boosted the footage to '60 frames per second', upped the image resolution to '4K', restored video sharpness and added in color using DeOldify.

In case you're unfamiliar with the world of AI, DeOldify is an open-source AI tool available on GitHub and it can be used for colorizing black and white images and videos.

The colorized footage, first uploaded to the platform in 2020, has since taken the internet by storm after going viral and clocking up over a staggering 20 million views.

With over 67,000 comments, it's clear people couldn't wait to share their reactions to the incredible peek into a time once passed.

Take a look:

One YouTube user penned: "So weird to think that future generations will be able to look back on our time so much clearer than we can with our history."

A second wrote: "The way they all double take/stare into the camera is making me feel like I'm a time traveler and they're on to me!"

Another added: "This is unbelievable. Like stepping into a time machine 112 years into the past."

"Absolutely amazing film restoration!" echoed a fourth. "I've thoroughly enjoyed taking a step back in time - fantastic time machine."

"Those people staring into the camera could never have predicted that I'd be laying down here on my bed over 100 years later and staring right back at them," commented a fifth. "It's just wild."

It sure is.

A final YouTube user declared: "This is the most amazing YouTube video I have ever seen in my life."

Denis included in the YouTube video's description: "Please, be aware that colorization colors are not real and fake, colorization made only for the ambiance and do not represent real historical data."

Even with that in mind, you can't deny, the footage is pretty cool.

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