People love taking selfies. Really, we do.
There’s a new facial recognition technology that uses selfies, along with a few other personal details, to determine how old a person looks and how long they are expected to live. Face My Age was developed by S. Jay Olshansky, a biodemographer from the University of Illinois at Chicago and Dr. Karl Ricanek Jr., from the University of North Carolina-Wilmington. The Face My Age site asks users to upload a photo, include their age, birthday, gender and race, then answer questions about drug use, smoking, education, relationships, sun exposure and plastic surgery.
“Scientists know that ‘looking old for your age’ is associated with a higher risk of death, but research in this area involved only a handful of people looking at pictures of identical twins and deciding which looked older and younger,” according to the program’s website. “A subdomain of facial recognition, coined facial analytics, eliminates the judgment, automates the process of facial comparison for age, and establishes scientifically verified ‘ages’ of your face.” The program, Face My Age, then uses that information to calculate your “face age,” expected life span and your probability of living over the ages of 65 and 85. According to the site, Face My Age determines your “face age” by evaluating everything from face shape to facial muscle.
The results can be affected by poor photo quality and whether or not a person is smiling. Given that, it seems like the site’s conclusions may be more inaccurate than accurate.
Check it out! Seems like it might be interesting.
