In 1995 I went to a talk on Image Processing by an Indian professor. I asked him if there were any methods for improving low resolution images, just to make them look better (I think this was in the context of TV transmissions). He said you couldn't make up information.

Well, 30 years later, you can generate a video from a photograph.

Also you can get a lot more information from images than you think, and even more from video. Superresolution was the term iirc.

You can’t make up information but you can use knowledge of the subject to accurately fill things in and other assumptions to plausibly fill things in.

While there's been a lot of technological progress, I think that story confuses different meanings of "could" and "information".

From a photo of someone's face and shoulders, a child can add "information" by extending it to a stick-figure body with crayons. However it's not information from the original event that was recorded.

Then there's the difference between strictly capable versus permissible or wise. A researcher "can't" make up data, a journalist "can't" invent quotes, a US President "can't" declare himself dictator, etc.

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