Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Beauty In The Eye Of The Android

Posted by timothy on from the artificial-non-intelligence dept.

rcswebb writes "According to this article at the BBC - Artificial intelligence experts in Fife (Scotland) have unveiled a robotic head which they say can scientifically determine how attractive women are to men."

4 of 64 comments (clear)

  1. This isn't exactly new, and other questions by MBCook · · Score: 4, Interesting
    First of all, why a robot head? All you need is a camera. That said, here is how this isn't exaclty new:

    I remember seeing on TV a few years ago (probably on Discovrey, but maybe TLC) a program that talked about what made people attractive (face wise) as part of a story on something else, plastic surgery I think. They talked about how it's based on some ratio that's found all over the body (fingertips are 1.something times longer than the next segment). So this guy came up with a geometrical "ideal" face showing the ideal ratio. Then they used computers to compare peoples faces to the way the "ideal" face was and made a "beauty index." They used examples like the Mad Magazine guy (very low), Cindy Crawford (high), etc. Things like symetry were taken into accound (the "line" they eyes are on should be parallel to the mouth "line", and perpendicular to the nose, things should be evenly spaced, etc.) Just take that, and combine it with other things ("hour-glass shape detector", etc.) and you end up with an automatic beauty detector.

    Just my 0.02, FWIW.

    --
    Comment forecast: Bits of genius surrounded by a sea of mediocrity.
  2. It isn't nearly as subjective as one might think by rw2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    People will complain about this measurement being subjective, but it isn't nearly as much as you might think. There are common features that statistically significant numbers of men are attracted to. I hate Julia Roberts, for example, but I'm willing to admit that most men find her hot. I love Salma Hayek, but realize that there are a handful of insane males that don't.

    So, folks, don't whine about the options here, Mr. Roboto will serve you well when you send him bar hopping to scout out the one with the hottest chicks.

  3. The robot's standards might not be men's standards by usernumber31337 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    If the robot rates on "feminity", it might rank Oprah higher than a member of the Women's Swedish Swim Team, contradicting every man in the world.
    Also, there was a study in Discover(I think) that showed that digital "Averaging" of faces produced a face that was stunningly beautiful. However, while an "average" face might be ranked by a robot as beautiful, it might harshly rank offbeat faces that some people like, such as Julia Stiles and Christina Ricci.

  4. Re:This isn't ... St.Andrews Uni offshoot? by pbhj · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Kirkcaldy is only a few miles from St.Andrews University which made all the papers in Britain about 4-5 years ago with news they'd created an image of the perfect woman and man (or something like that) ... ie those that are most attractive (on average) to members of the opposite sex. MBCook is right about the metrics involved ...

    More info from a recent BBC article or from the St.A perception labs homepage - the face transformer page here is quite fun.