Can AI Really Identify Antiques? "Congratulations. Your Candlesticks Are Now Louis XVI"
Teilen
The day every antique dealer had been quietly dreading has finally arrived.
You're wandering through a vide-grenier, the French equivalent of a giant neighbourhood attic sale.
On one table you spot a pair of vintage candlesticks. 1960s. Rococo Revival. Pleasant enough, but hardly the sort of thing that would make a museum curator lose sleep.
"I'm afraid," the owner says, "they're no longer vintage candlesticks."
"Oh?"
"Google examined them."
They are now an exceptionally rare pair of Louis XVI palace candelabra. That'll be €1,500.
"But..."
"No "buts". Artificial intelligence has already established the facts."
"May I ask what makes you think they're Louis XVI?"
"Artificial intelligence."
"Did you check the maker's mark?"
"Why would I? It already did."
"You didn't actually show it the maker's mark."
"That's just a technicality."
"And why €1,500?"
"Because someone on eBay is asking €800 for a similar one."
"Did they sell it?"
"That's hardly the point. They're asking."
Image search has been around for well over a decade.
The difference is that it used to be remarkably modest.
It would simply say:
"Here are a few visually similar objects."
These days it has become considerably more ambitious.
Now it cheerfully informs you:
"Congratulations. You've just discovered an exceptionally rare object from the French royal court."
Not long ago, identifying an eighteenth-century object with confidence required twenty years of studying the decorative arts.
Now all you need is a phone with about forty per cent battery.
If you think I'm exaggerating, here's a simple example from my own experience.
Four glass or crystal candlesticks. All identical in shape.
One was made by Baccarat.
One by a little-known German manufacturer.
One by a little-known Spanish manufacturer.
And one is a modern Chinese reproduction.
Now identify the genuine Baccarat.
From a photograph taken three metres away, in poor lighting, with shaky hands, against the busiest tablecloth imaginable.
I couldn't do it. Not from that photograph. No serious antiques dealer could.
Artificial intelligence, however, will happily give you an answer in under a second.
And if you're buying rather than merely browsing, that answer could prove surprisingly expensive.