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Averaging Inanimate Objects Together Produces a Very Human Face

Posted by timothy on from the what-we-look-for dept.

StartsWithABang writes: It's well known that by aligning and averaging a wide variety of human faces together, an eerie "average" human face can be arrived at. But we see faces in things all the time, from natural scenes like terrain to artificial ones like cars, coffeemakers and combination locks. For the first time, someone averaged together a large number of images of objects appearing to have faces, and the result, strikingly, was an eerily human face. You'd think this might say more about the algorithm than the images themselves, but when noise was used, no human face emerged at all.

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Surprise! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    So, average a bunch of things that only have their resemblance to a human face in common, and you end up with a human face? I didn't see that coming.

  2. Go away, startswithabang by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Your blogspam links to Forbes is offensive.

    Stop linking a website that is designed to broke hyperlinks and to force through an ad page.

  3. So averaging things which look like a face... by UpnAtom · · Score: 5, Funny

    Did the rest of the world suddenly get dumb?

    Here averaging is basically:
    What's common amongst all/most of these images that look like a face?

    Yes, it's something that looks like a face. Shocked, I tell you.

  4. Just great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Next thing you'll be telling me that when you average 50 photos of assholes you'll come up with something that looks remarkably like [pick your favourite politician].