#how-old.net

This is the site that tries to guess your age from your photo.  I’ve used it before, but having recently come across a video about it, I thought I’d give it another go.

Now, this year, I have been told things ranging from “you look about 12″ to “somewhere in your mid 30′s” in-person, by different people in different contexts (perhaps based on how I’m dressed and on whether I’m wearing makeup).  Since high school, people have assumed me to be either older or younger than I am, but in high school, guesses typically ranged between 15 and 27, whereas now, guesses range between 16 and 25.  

So I wondered, can a machine do better?

The answer was a resounding NO.

These are all pictures taken within the last two years.  I wrote the correct ages on top.  The site’s guesses range from 17 to 29.  This is not too different than how people see me in-person.  There are four different pictures on the bottom row, two of which repeat. At least the site was consistent in giving the same picture the same age.  But, on the bottom left, those are two selfies taken the same day, but in one it thinks I look 17 whereas it thinks I look 23 in the other.  The bottom right is also two angles from the same day, but at least there is only a two-year discrepancy, and one is correct.

I was satisfied there, until it occurred to me that these are all deliberate shots.  What about candid photos?  are those more or less accurate?

So, in the name of science, I tried out some candid photos and older photos:

Wow.  This is complete lunacy.

My point and shoot camera has a feature for ID photos where you take one shot and it makes these different little sizes so that if you print a standard 4*6, one of these will be the size you need for your passport or other ID.  So, in the bottom row, all of the images in each are the same, just different sizes.  BUT the site gave them different ages...for the SAME image.  

On the top row, the left is a candid shot.  Now, people tend to say my mom and I look like sisters, so those incorrect ages reflect that appearance.  

But to the right of that is my second time in the Miss Teen pageant.  I was 15.  But somehow this pic got the highest age from the site.  FORTY-TWO.  #42.  Perhaps it’s trying to say something about the meaning of competition in my life, the universe, and everything.

And on the top right is a shot of me on the UK coast; either the margin of error was increased by the distance, or by the fact that my face is scrunched up by a smile and the sun.  Who knows?  It also seems that the more tan I happen to be in a photo, the older it thinks I am (with the exception of the very first one in which I am not tan but it said I was 29).

The conclusion: machines are generally no better than people at guessing age (which makes sense because programmers), and sometimes are actually far worse.  

New Post has been published on http://blog.jiji.ng/2016/02/its-not-alive-but-the-latest-unique-technologies/

It’s Not Alive, But… The Latest Unique Technologies!

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