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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.
Fox "News" already does this when they're running stories about reporters from other news outlets.
--MarkusQ
That the 'before' picture is much more appealing. She has nice eyes and an interesting, engaging face. She looks like someone who would be worth talking to.
The 'after' picture looks like a generic pretty-but-not-beautiful girl. She looks like she would be interested in shopping and hairstyles. The world would be very boring if everyone looked like that.
Read Pynchon.
I couldn't sense any difference between the two pictures for most of the guys, but the pictures of the women seemed significantly different. Maybe I'm just weird, or maybe, as a guy, I recognize the subtleties of women's faces better, or maybe I recognize the differences more readily because I look at a lot more women than men.
Anyone else notice the same thing? As well, did any women notice the differences in the men a lot easier than in the women?
I wonder how much easily this could be accomplished just by enforcing the golden ratio on a face.
If you enforce the golden ratio too far, you get Precious Moments, where the eyes are a golden ratio down the face (resulting in a huge forehead) and the neck is a golden ratio up the body (resulting in difficulty putting on clothes).
Mirrored yes. But more symmetric does appear more attractive.
From the sample it looks like their algorithm almost completely disregarded several opportunities for increasing symmetry and improved the face in other ways.
That was the subtlest Godwin I've ever seen. Alright everyone, thread over. Move along.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.