Computer recognizes attractiveness in women

Mon, Apr 7, 2008

Post filled in: Other, Research

beautyIt’s said that a computer can never even get close to processing data in the way a man does, but this can easily freak you out. Beauty lies in the eye of the beholder, right? Right ?! The thing is that according to scientists at Tel Aviv University, the beholder doesn’t have to be human.

Amit Kagian, an M.Sc. graduate from the TAU School of Computer Sciences, has successfully “taught” a computer how to understand and process the factors which contribute to attractiveness in women. Aside from this being the modern equivalent of “mirror mirror on the wall” and all the vanity that could come from it, it’s actually quite important. The importance lies in the fact that this is a significant breakthrough in creating artificial intelligence in computers.

“Until now, computers have been taught how to identify basic facial characteristics, such as the difference between a woman and a man, and even to detect facial expressions,” says Kagian. “But our software lets a computer make an aesthetic judgment. Linked to sentiments and abstract thought processes, humans can make a judgment, but they usually don’t understand how they arrived at their conclusions.”

The computer takes into consideration into its analyss factors such as symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color. In the first step 30 men and women were presented with 100 different faces of Caucasian women, roughly of the same age, and were asked to judge the beauty of each face. But the idea that beauty can be reduced to binary data is not new at all; actually it dates back to ancient Greece. Pythagoras reasoned that features of physical objects corresponding to the “golden ratio” were considered most attractive.

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  • ET

    This begs a question, major step toward AI. Mmmm why is it important that my computer thinks, or feels, I’m attractive? I have a microwave oven to re-heat meals, not re-heat my bedroom. Will we now postulate the “new-birth” experience is available to silicon, or my self esteem is now based upon my computer’s opinion? Let me see now, my car will only start and get me to work only if I conform to it’s opinion. A major step, mmmmmm

    With the price of gas nearing $4 a gallon (US) how about Miss AI “powering” a rickshaw? Now that may be a hood ornament, but at least one that adds value to my life other than standard general issue equipment. Plus a more carbon neutral life style, the aim of AI perhaps?

  • JayzusKryst

    You don’t get it.
    It isn’t about your heater or your car you twit, it’s about computers being able to make judgments on an incredibly fine scale.

    Thing of this in terms of medicinal purposes and you might be less pessimistic about the technology.

  • Octopus

    Sure the technology can analyze the face and tell a blonde from a brunette. But if it tries to tell me that one is prettier than the other because of hair colour? Well, obviously its only making judgements based on what its trainer or programmer has taught it.

  • James

    Twit?

    You look past the point of the comment and focus on the terms used in an analogy. Then, you don’t back-up your argument at all, you simply declare “ET” to be a twit that “doesn’t get it”

    Oh, and, maybe, just maybe, we don’t want computers to decide for us the things necessary for life itself.

    Take for example:

    There is a virus and the computer must calculate a cure.
    Do you think that the computer is going to care if a few (or maybe more, this IS the computer deciding what counts as “acceptable lose” here, right?) people die in order to get a cure while a human will take every precaution imaginable to prevent even one?

    Now, that’s not to say the use of computers is bad, but maybe we shouldn’t give them the capability to actually make decisions on their own, cause, you know, one day they might just decide that humans are too inefficient to do anything on their own.

    Oh, and by the way, before anyone decides to post anything in regards to “AI will never harm anyone” it’s all lies, there are already robots that the government has put guns on and sent into the battlefield. Also, anyone who knows what there doing (and i guess those that aren’t as well) can program a computer to do just about anything.

  • Tirk

    This isn’t AI.. Its simply taking an image of women and comparing it to whatever data some horny chauvinistic coder decided to call a ‘beautiful women’.

    ‘The computer takes into consideration into its ANALYSIS factors such as symmetry, smoothness of the skin and hair color.’

    Unless the computer can think for itself and has had time to develop likes and dislikes, it cant determine what it finds attractive unless its told to. (Which I’m sure is a bottle tanned, blond, busty woman in her 20′s.) In order to get real results, you would have to first be able to give a computer a personality.. Which, I don’t care what AI developers say, they haven’t accomplished that yet, not well at least. (and I really hope they don’t..)

  • http://www.zmescience.com mihai andrei

    yeah but if you think about it, you make an analysis too. Society makes you form your opinion about beauty just like the scientists introduced the parameters, only society works in a subtler way. AI is still far away, that’s for sure but it’s these little steps that will probably pave the way.

  • http://zimbob.outwar.com/page/2143763 youknow
  • claydell

    Computer calculates.
    Humans decide.

    A funny girl is often a lot prettier after you know her.
    A fat girl is a beauty if food is scarce in your society.
    An ugly?? girl is hot as hell after eight weeks of boot camp.

    Computer calculates.
    Humans make decisions based upon too many variables for a computer to keep track of. (for now anyway)

  • AC

    Ugh. Your comment makes my brain weep.

    If you’d read the article at all, your presumption that this is the mechanization of one man’s lust for a porno star would never have been formed.

    “In the first step 30 men and women were presented with 100 different faces of Caucasian women, roughly of the same age, and were asked to judge the beauty of each face”

    In addition, research into what is considered “beautiful” is nothing new. One constant among men, women, blacks, whites, hispanics, jews, muslims etc. is symmetry. That doesn’t mean that the woman in question fits the post-modern feminist image of evil.

    Get over yourself.

  • It’s cool, but…

    I don’t buy it, it’s not AI – the computer is still only doing what computer programmers told it to do, it’s not like it’s making its own judgments. The day a computer makes a decision or analysis completely independent of anything it was ever programmed to do in the first place, THAT day will I be convinced that AI is possible.

  • dtm

    I am not that concerned about a machine making an analysis entirely independently of what it’s programmed to do. I think this particular beauty-recognition program could fit into a larger program that could take a few images of a person, extrapolate a 3D model, and design a few different plastic surgery operations.

    As far as I’m concerned, such a program, refined to the point that people trust the program’s decisions, would be an astounding achievement for artificial intelligence, though the program never makes a single judgment independent of its programming. My notion is rather strange, though, since it would mean that ATMs, because they perform one task well enough that people trust it, also have a rudimentary form of artificial intelligence.

  • Dave

    But can it tell if she smells pretty?

  • Sakura6

    I’m holding out for the computer that can distinguish a good personality from a bad one.

  • Leroy Jones

    This is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.Why do we insist on developing systems that will eventually turn on us?I want to keep humans in the loop as long as possible even though we are fat,lazy and ineffcicient.But that’s beside the point dammit,I wanna live ha ha.

  • ES

    The problem I see with every one of your comments is not the fact that the computer can tell whether a person is pretty or not… it’s the fact that its one step closer to AI. It’s not just this system that is important, and every one of you is forgetting that. as a human we take society into a factor on what WE think is attractive, so you take that computer, give it a base understanding and give it the ability to rationalize what other people say, and now you are forming a more intelligent functional AI. You add that to the ability to stand and move through terrain, judge distances, speak, and learn language and slang, and now we are starting to look at a humanoid with a personality.
    Taking 30 men and women and taking an average is nothing, its taking them and then giving it the ability to adapt to any new input, recalculate and then make a decision.
    Let’s take music as another example. Your thought on music is based on what you hear on the radio, what your friends listen to, and what is commonly available, if one of your friends decides to listen to a new type of music, through the course of him/her playing it, you will eventually learn to enjoy that type of music regardless of what you listen to before.
    The point is it all comes down to taking steps to further AI. Not this specific instance but AI as a whole. Open you mind to the whole of AI, not just this instance!

  • JL

    Why only Caucasian women? If there’s anything the Golden Ratio and studies of facial symmetry have taught us, it’s that beauty comes in all colours.

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  • Hugh Wish

    This is an easy formula a perfect 10 is just an 8 that swallows.

  • http://www.accelerating.org/articles/comingtechsingularity.html Josef

    check out The Coming Technological Singularity by Vernor Vinge at http://www.accelerating.org/articles/comingtechsingularity.html

    Might give you something to think about.

  • AI

    You still don’t have a clue. Advancement in AI has nothing to do with what you are talking about. You read and watch too many Sci-Fi movies. Do you realize that your car right now is running on a computer of sorts. Just think of how an advancement in the field of AI could better that. Things like traction control and wheel stabilizing mechanisms right now work on very complex computations. However, they don’t work perfectly or even come close to human response of a great driver. Think of how many lives can be saved from technology like this. Also, who would leave such a task as human lives to a computer. Your examples don’t make any sense. In any case all programmer have back-door. If it really comes down to man versus machine we’d still win. Just turn everything off and start over. I’m sure they’ve done that one before a Sci-Fi movie.

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  • misseleven

    What I find quite interesting here is-
    unless i have missed someone-
    all you commenting are male.
    also- interesting that they chose
    a woman’s face to project the model.
    Once again interesting- most of you
    seem to be referring to women in your
    comments. What does that suggest?

  • http://www.practice-questions.com CFA Level 1

    I guess they’ll use this technology to help future beauty pageant judges make an unbiased decision.

  • Mike

    No shit, Sherlock. What detective school did you go to?

    I’ll have to award you own personal Master of the Obvious award for that one.

  • William

    It does not beg the question. It may raise the question, but it does not “Beg” the question.

  • Brian

    Some people have gone off topic in this, a computer that can accurately pick attractiveness does not have a purpose in itself. The methodology that allows a computer to be as accurate as a group of people and to pick features similarly is just a useful tool in showing that programming and computation have become flexible enough to mimic humans.

    This is just a stepping stone, if true AI is to be created, and that a computer can react with humans in a way which is contextually accurate, it must also be able to examine the world in a fashion that has similar results to humans.

    If it can make assumptions similar to humans, it may be able to act on those assumptions in a way that is expected. This is good for simulation. The goal of AI is not to have machines making choices for us, but to create machines that react in a way that is more in tune with what humans expect or are comfortable with.

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  • Joanna

    this is just weird… computers.. no matter how smart they get.. even to the point where they can teach themselves… will never come near a humans capability.. and this is just weird…asking a computer if your beautiful? even for medical purposes? what? tha doctor is too blind?

  • riff

    There are immediate applications that no one has even touched upon!

    Some people rely on personal breathalyzers because they can not judge just how drunk they are and want to avoid OUI arrests.

    Some people have had to chew their own arm off in the morning in order to get out of bed without waking the skank they went home with the night before; the one who looked so much better at closing time…

    Now, people can carry personal beauty meters. That way, once they are that drunk, they can still avoid beer goggles/coyote ugly scenarios.

    I would imagine that one could set a lower threshold, based on need, and then just scan the bar when the lights come on at the end of the night.

    More advanced models, with memory, would be able to assist you in evaluating your chances in advance, based on high, low, and mean scores…

    My… the potential is unfathomable. Mwhah-hah-hah…

  • itsalljustaride

    why are we trying to get computers to do all the good stuff?

    Computers are for doing mindless repetitive tasks like transmitting and transforming data. Not the fun stuff that humans are made and perfect for like making complex decisions about beauty, ethics, politics, etc.

    Computers are tools, not human substitutes. They free us from the need to do boring shite so we can have more time to tackle the real problems.

  • steve

    I wonder what it likes more, tits or ass.

  • jacob

    idk. probably has a scale for them or something. algorithm.

  • @James

    You just don’t get it. You must be one of those people who run away from technology because they don’t understand it.

    Firstly, you have seen I Robot way too many times apart from watching several other AI films.

    Its not impossible for true AI to exist. Its just that careful precautions have to be taken if they are to make decisions. Thats all it is.

    AI is software written in a particular way. The web page you see in front of you is a result of some major advancements in technology. You just don’t know what goes into bringing each little packet of information across the web to your computer. If people like you had power, several of us would probably be still burnt alive at the stake!

    I ain’t saying AI will never harm, but that doesn’t mean we stop advancements in technology. Whether AI is ethical or not is not an issue yet, so there should be nothing stopping it from progressing.

  • Digital

    So many stupids, so little internet to hold them.

    Step1: RTFA (whole thing)
    Step2: Google related information to gather a bases for understanding what is going on and other viewpoints on tech.
    Step3: Don’t need to post because everyone on the internet does this and there are not any morons spouting crap left, and people actually understand what they are posting about.

  • Kara

    Well I, for one, think this by itself could be useful. Not in judging beauty, but in telling people apart. A lot of the biometric security scanners we have now are quite inaccurate. Progressing toward one that could differentiate between relatives would be great.

    On the overall note, that computer intelligence is advancing: I’d call that as a good thing. We aren’t talking about Terminator here. That’s called Hollywood. It’s not to be confused with anything actually resembling science. We’re talking about Google giving you better search results. Or, further down the line, a computer that can detect structural flaws in architecture. Wouldn’t you prefer having the computer find that before the ceiling falls on your head? I would.

  • EvilBelgian

    I am finding this rather sad, a lot of people seem to be assuming that the AI of the future would have these over powerful bodies you see in movies such as I Robot. This is to be frank completely retarded. AI is like previous people have said a tool that could be used to correct mistakes we made. a machine that could work unattended. Doing something stupid like giving it the ability to feel boredom or to act out of its programming is stupid. Humanity may make alot of mistakes but i doubt we will entrust our Global defense system to an artificial intelligence with a skewered perception of what is good for mankind.

    The program that has been developed is one step in creating an artificial intelligence that is more human or even a tool that could be used for woman not sure what makeup they should wear to look as good as possible or a man who doesn’t know if he looks better with a shave or without a shave.

    the people who have fantasies about robots destroying the world should get checked out for acute paranoia.

    And on a final note, the robots currently being employed by the military would never and should never have AI intergrated into them, they are remote controlled with no capability to make choices for themselves.

  • http://www.boredquiz.com Beauty Quiz

    I think the software just recognizes symmetry in the female face, probably color equivalences as well.

  • Rei

    1) Computers, or governments armed with robots aren’t going to take over the world and I feel sorry for those of you who believe that. Really.

    2) Studies show that as far as our culture goes, there is a magic formula for deciding what is beautiful and what isn’t. So quit with the, “It only cares about what some dumb programmer taught it.” It only does Caucasian women because when you cross race/cultures, the formula for what is beautiful or not changes.

    3) I really don’t understand how this is related to gas prices. Maybe someone could explain that in detail.

  • Phia

    Has anyone out there read Uglies and Pretties by Scott Westerfeld? It explains in it that what the human brain finds “attractive” in a face can be summed up thus:
    *large lips and eyes – remind us of harmless, vulnerable children
    *clear skin – says “I am healthy”
    *symmetry of the face – because having one side of your face different to the other is “unusual” and unnatractive
    *appropriately proportioned facial features

    The computer is not making individual judgements, it is basing its conclusion on each of these factors. It’s entirely mathematical.

    I’m interested to see whether this technology becomes available to the public… call me vain, but I wouldn’t mind knowing how beautiful I am :p Or I could, you know, just ask a guy rather than buy an entire program… hmm.
    :p

    ~Phia

  • lol

    “It’s not AI”.
    Just keep repeating that mantra. It’s served us well since the first AI was put to work for humanity.
    Google is not AI. No, really. It doesn’t matter that it’s listening to all of us and learning from our searches. That’s not “intelligence”! That’s just…Oh, I don’t know, something NOT special and uniquely human!
    Harrumph!

  • lol

    Phia: There’s no way that guy might be lying to manipulate you into getting naked, is there? Or to protect your fragile emotions?

  • mka

    I have to agree with ‘lol’ who says it isn’t AI.

    Actually we (humans) are still far away from realizing how attraction works.

    It can be put roughly so: There might be a trend as to which face looks beautiful (defined by the media) but it’s not the same for all people. Often good or bad memories might change the way a person perceives a human face.

    Here, programmers have come up with a list of characteristics that make a face beautiful. But as we know not so long time ago fat women were preferred by man.

    It would be amazing if the computer could find beauty for itself (and stick to it) even if it is totally the opposite of human’s believe. The problem is that for this to happen there must be some way to make the computer feel joy or anxiety and so on… yet we don’t exactly understand how it happens with us and what it affects.
    (If you think about it, that weird good feeling that hits you when you see a beautiful woman is exactly what makes you see her that way)

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  • http://akselsoft.blogspot.com Andrew

    It IS AI – ONLY if the computer is learning as it moves forward.

    But what is AI? A computer that acts like humans do or a computer that is intelligent.

    At this stage, the computer is doing exactly what babies and young children do – given a set of parameters, making a determination of what “is”. While one can argue that beauty is not about smoothness of skin, etc – what are the criteria for a “beautiful” person?
    Here are some possible areas:
    a) consistency
    b) proportion
    c) self-preserving behavior
    d) actions

    Items that ARE subjective (many blamed the coders but think in terms of what pressures society may put on):
    a) color of hair
    b) length of hair
    c) color of eyes
    d) weight etc

    It WOULD be “more human” if the computer started with some basic criteria (noted at the start) and then formed a determination of beauty BASED on other aspects (such as others, etc).

    So what ARE the right parameters for AI?

  • Jack

    I believe the article may be misleading into questioning wether beauty is in the eye of the beholder or not, after all, beauty is subjective, and that human subjectivity is what gives value to it, objectively, nothing is beautiful nor ugly either.

    The AI computer, is based on algorithms which give results based on symmetry and stuff provided by programmers and learning, but the computer won’t have a judgement for itself, nor the computer would perceive something either beautiful, ugly, comfortable or uncomfortable, nor the computer has a sexual orientation to feel attraction towards something.

  • vivian

    If theyre getting the judging stick out, why dont they use both men and women as the theoretical group to be aesthetically judged by a machine? Well that would be distasteful, wouldnt it? To be judged attractive or not based soloely on your appearance? hhm.

  • David

    What many of you are not realising is that the type of programming behind a (neural network) is similar to that way our brains work and very different to how conventional programs are made and work. Therefore this is a large step towards artificial inteligence.

  • Poegoquotrope

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  • CJ

    This has nothing to do with artificial intelligence. The computer is reading values and comparing them to a human-created model of what defines attractiveness. It doesn’t prove there is a standard of beauty. That’s a circular argument. it is a recreation of a human standard. The computer is being taught sexist ideals of beauty that society indoctrinates us with.

    Consider this: Why is only the attractiveness of women being rated? Why are all the women caucasian? So much unrecognized bias going on it’s depressing. And people think scientists are objective! That’s hardly the case.

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