Algorithms Can Make You Pretty 288
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.
Oh great, just what the world needs. (Score:5, Insightful)
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?
Cultural bias? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Golden Ratio? (Score:3, Insightful)
Of course, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and when you get old looks fade and all those cliched adages.
I don't recognize her (Score:2, Insightful)
It doesn't look like the same person anymore, but a completely different person with a different face while keeping the same hair and clothes.
Re:See what happens when you put Hillary Clinton's (Score:3, Insightful)
I am not sure about Hillary (you could've provided a link), but if i have to go by the two pictures at the top of TFA, i'd say the algorithm isn't working very well for me. I find the original face more attractive than the result.
Maybe the algorithm works to tune an image to _someone's_ preferences, but those are different than mine. That is, beauty is still in the eye of the beholder.
What else is new?
By who's standard (Score:3, Insightful)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder blah blah blah..... I say beauty is cultural. The parameters by which program works are based on a elitist 'Hollywood' culture, the fact that a 'scientist' would prescribe to such unfair generalizations is offensive to me. Yea Yea demonstrating a concept blah blah blah.
Re:Fox news already does this (Score:4, Insightful)
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).
Re:By who's standard (Score:3, Insightful)
Feel free to hold whatever philosophy makes you the most comfortable and ignore the science.
I liked the woman on the left (original) better, but I am a statistical anomaly. That doesn't mean my opinion of beauty is any less valid, it just means my opinions aren't shared with the majority of human beings. The person's culture has less of an effect on a person's opinion of beauty than you claim is the point that the science is trying to prove.
I'm Already Pretty (Score:4, Insightful)
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...
Re:I actually think (Score:1, Insightful)
Initially the original picture looked altered to me, her eyes are huge. The altered picture is over-saturated, although I admit I know women who (usually due to makeup) look less natural in real life.
If you had to ask me which picture I found most attractive (in that photogenic sense) I'd say the altered one, which (apologies for crudeness) I wanted sucking my cock? The first, without a doubt!
Re:I actually think (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Lame (Score:3, Insightful)
The brown-eyed girl looks plain now. Not ugly, just plain. The before picture had a more expressing face.
The pictures on this page (http://www.cs.tau.ac.il/~tommer/beautification2008/) are absolutely lame. The "before" pics had people in a neutral to a tiny bit of sad face(look at the lips). The new pics simple lift the corners of the lips and tada, better results. That's not better, that's cheap. Since the days of tell-sell I have realised that the before/after contruct was purely based on non-smiling/smiling people because it's that much of a change. This algorithm fails and should not be touted as the best thing since sliced bread.
Also, it makes Woody Allen look like someone who is 90.
There is a simpler, proven method (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I'm Already Pretty (Score:4, Insightful)
Algorithms can model the lowest-common denominator of attractiveness, as determined by our sample respondents.
or
Beauty by committee.
Re:I'm Already Pretty (Score:5, Insightful)
yea, this research is completely useless. the only potential application i can see for this is to sell software to insecure individuals with low self-esteem so that they can hide behind altered photos of themselves online, further reinforcing their negative self image.
honestly, this program embodies what is most wrong with modern western culture--superficiality, vanity, and an abhorrence of eccentricity or individuality.
Umm...no... (Score:3, Insightful)
Human faces are not symmetric, and our brains know that even if we don't.
Mirrored faces often seem grotesque. Or at least plastic-robotic.
How to look better *without* a computer (Score:4, Insightful)
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!
Re:I actually think (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Am I the only one... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I actually think (Score:4, Insightful)
That is really why I hate America...
faceresearch.org (Score:5, Insightful)
personally, i find the faceresearch.org demo [faceresearch.org] 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.
Re:I'm Already Pretty (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right - we should ban this type of research. After all, any avenues of research into machine learning algorithms or computer imagery that caused this abortion of a program to be created should be abandoned for all time and sealed up in that place where they put the Ark of the Covenant.
Or maybe this was just an example application to demonstrate their research. Your call!
Re:I actually think (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Oh Wow. (Score:2, Insightful)
Man, that is creepy as hell. I'm not sure the after picture is actually prettier than the before picture either.
Re:I'm Already Pretty (Score:3, Insightful)
Other applications would include seeding several instances of the program with different cultures' opinions of beautiful photos and then comparing the results. Finding patterns in what people consider beautiful could be very valuable to social scientists.
As for the rest of your post, individuality and being different than everyone else is one of the defining attributes of many sub cultures, at least here in the US. I have never seen someone who was different being treated with abhorrence for their differences unless they were also correspondingly being dicks.
still recognizable? (Score:1, Insightful)
I disagree that it is "still recognizable as the original person". Sure, with the 2 pictures side by side, same angle, same clothes, same earrings, and same makeup, they look very similar. But if you gave me a different picture taken on a different day with different clothes and you asked me to compare to the modified picture, I would probably say they are different people.