Slashdot Mirror
Algorithms Can Make You Pretty
caffeinemessiah writes "The New York Times has an interesting story on a new algorithm by researchers from Tel Aviv University that modifies a facial picture of a person to conform to standards of attractiveness. Based on a digital library of pictures of people who have been judged 'attractive,' the algorithm finds the nearest match and modifies an input picture so it conforms to the 'attractive' person's proportions. The trick, however, is that the resultant pictures are still recognizable as the original person. Here's a quick link to a representative picture of the process. Note that this is a machine-learning approach to picture modification, not a characterization of beauty, and could just as easily be used to make a person less attractive." Note: As reader Trent Waddington points out, the underlying research was mentioned in an earlier story as well.
A way for people to fake their online photos in a way that when you finally meet them IRL you go ... AAAGH! What ... happened.. .to you... Car accident?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
They are never going to get away from the cultural influence.
I suspect that's why they used two different countries for their data. It's funny just how horrified some people are by the idea of hardcoded behavior in humans. It's a fight that's pretty much over at this point, and the nature and nurture camps both had a lot right and wrong.
Everything will be taken away from you.
and could just as easily be used to make a person less attractive.
Mod this guy up -- "dirty tricks" campaigning groups, foreign/domestic propaganda agencies, and disgruntled ex's will love to have something like this.
It allows the unskilled to dispense with the airbrush and photoshop skills, makes it easier and faster, and if the program is easily available publically, more deniable (for those who previously had the means to employ artists to do the job).
Seriously. Like, Chris Isaak, with Liz Taylor's eyes. But, without my overbite, I'd look dull.
So, there's software to make faces bland and uninteresting - go figure. I like the "before" picture girl - with the giant eyes, and super-sized mouth. Sensual, and sensitive. Those are attributes the "beautifying" stripped away...
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
I actually think... that the girl on the right is better looking. But the girl on the left would be more likely to hook up with most slashdotters. Therefore to most slashdotters, she will be more attractive.
"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something" - Plato
They all start looking prettier after the third beer...
"You mortals are so obtuse." -Q
I've seen the full video and looked at the article from the SIGGRAPH materials. All of the "after" pictures except one did look more or less better than the "before" picture, but there was one consistent change I noticed -- many of the subjects, especially among the female photos, appeared to be frowning or pouting in the original picture, and the modified picture turned up the corners of the mouth into more of a smile.
This tells me that simply smiling can enhance one's attractiveness a great deal!
While I agree that making guesses at someone's interests based on a headshot is superficial, we disagree on the definition of sexism. The poster was comparing two women, and not contemplating offering a job to either one (as far as I can tell).
Either that, or we disagree on the definition of women.
...who keeps misreading this as "algorithms can make you petty?"
I never realized...
That is really why I hate America...
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
personally, i find the faceresearch.org demo posted on Slashdot a while back the most interesting. unlike this algorithm, it actually presents some interesting findings about the psychology of aesthetic beauty.
rather than manipulating a single photo to make that person more "pretty." it allows you to average different people's head shots. and the result of this research seems to show that our perception of beauty is based on the mean range of facial geometries we're exposed to. we naturally find faces that are the most "average" attractive. but different populations have different averages, so there are still cultural differences.
another way to look at it is that instead of looking for features that define beauty, we really just have an aversion to faces that deviate too much from the cultural norm as defined by the average range of facial configurations. now, everyone has unique features that distinguish them from others, and everyone deviates from the population average in some respect, but some show a greater deviation than others, which may indicate their genetic fitness. and so our psychological attraction to average faces is an evolutionarily learned trait to help us pick the most genetically healthy individuals to mate with.
but what's interesting is that if you mix several very different faces that don't meet conventional standards of beauty, you will actually get a very attractive face as a result (try this in the demo by picking the ugliest faces out of the gallery to mix). this is probably because even though "ugly" people deviate largely from the cultural average, they all deviate in different ways, so it doesn't take two beautiful individuals to produce an attractive average.
a corollary to this effect is that a couple with drastically different looks will give birth to very attractive children. which actually works out perfectly with another evolutionary trait--that of opposites attracting. human beings (and perhaps other mammals as well) are attracted to individuals with a very different histocompatibility index to themselves. that is to say, we are attracted to individuals which are very genetically different from ourselves. we can detect people's histocompatibility with our own based on their body scent. and double blind studies have found that men and women find the body odors of individuals whose Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) was the most different from their own. this is to ensure that their offspring will receive a diverse set of genes, which leads to a more robust immune system and prevents inbreeding.
now, my personal theory is, men and women don't just find partners with complementary MHCs to them based on scent alone. facial features can also be an indication of genetic differences. so this may also lead to individuals being attracted to people who have very different facial features from themselves. and since the average of two drastically different faces produces a more average face, this also leads to better looking children.
Although there is something intellectually repellant about it, you are very naive if you think that you don't, or can't, make certain judgments about people based upon appearance.
For one thing (and generalising horribly), from a biological point of view how attractive you find someone is likely to have some correlation to whether they are likely to be a good (i.e. successful) match for you, or for propagating your genes.
From a social point of view, the way someone looks and presents themself also communicates a large amount of information to you non-verbally. To me, the 'after' picture has the subtle look of someone who is attempting to present themself in conformity to a certain standard, which is not a standard I find particularly compelling.
Finally, is it impossible to think that someone who is conventionally pretty might be exposed to a different set of experiences to someone who is not regarded as such? This might natually have some impact on personality.
All of the above are generalisations. I totally agree that ideally one should not make snap judgments about people based on appearance. Nevertheless, I maintain that everyone does it, and that it is not entirely invalid (from a logical, not moral, point of view).
As for 'sexism', it is nothing of the sort. If it's anything, it's reverse discrimination against blandly pretty people, which is probably not all that high on the list of terrible things happening in the world today.
Read Pynchon.