PORTLAND — Rebecca Thornton, 34, made the unsettling discovery Tuesday that approximately 60% of her cherished childhood memories were fabricated by a family photo management AI her parents installed in 2014.

The revelation emerged when Thornton attempted to locate the beach house from a vivid vacation memory, only to learn that her family had never visited Maine. "I can taste the lobster roll," she insisted. "I remember the sand between my toes, the sound of the waves." Her mother gently explained that the AI had generated those photos to fill gaps in the family album.

The software, marketed as "MemoryKeeper Pro," used existing family photos to generate plausible vacation images, birthday parties, and holiday gatherings that never occurred. The product's tagline—"The childhood they deserved"—now reads as considerably more ominous than intended.

Thornton's father defended the purchase. "She was always upset that other kids had more vacation photos," he explained. "The AI made her happy. She had memories of Disneyland, the Grand Canyon, a ski trip to Aspen. Was I supposed to tell a nine-year-old that none of it happened?"

A therapist specializing in digital-era identity issues described the phenomenon as "increasingly common." Dr. Patricia Hartley estimates that children born after 2010 carry an average of 23 fabricated memories, most implanted through AI-enhanced photo libraries their parents never thought to label as synthetic.

"The human brain doesn't distinguish between real and manufactured nostalgia," Dr. Hartley explained. "These people genuinely grieve for experiences that never existed. It's a new category of loss."

Thornton has begun cataloging her memories, attempting to separate authentic experiences from generated ones. She reports that the process is "like performing archaeology on your own mind" and that she can no longer look at family photos without suspicion.

MemoryKeeper Pro's parent company declined to comment but noted that the product maintains a 4.7-star rating on the App Store.