Beauty-rating software could spell trouble for Hot or Not

Facial recognition software has been used in a smorgasbord of positive applications, aiding our soldiers in detecting baddies, keeping weirdos out of clubs, barring maniacs from entering football arenas, and even helping parents know when their infant is truly in a bad way, but the latest usage of the technology could indeed hurt the feelings of the less-than-attractive. A pair of controversy-lovin' Australian scientists have devised a software program that actually rates one's face "from one to ten" in terms of most ugly to most beautiful, and uses a sophisticated database of facial proportions borrowed from some 200 stunning women across the globe in order to give you a very honest answer when questioning your attractivity. Of course, we all know that real beauty lies within (right?), and if your idea of sexy doesn't match up with the generally accepted supermodel "look," the results could indeed conflict with your own beliefs. Currently, the program is designed to work solely with women, but adopting a male iteration could definitely be in the cards, and while we doubt this stuff would be particularly beneficial for your image-obsessed teen, it's primarily intended for use in the cosmetic surgery realm to judge just how effective that ridiculously expensive nose job really was.

[Via Digg]

[LukeA @ Mar 18th 2007 4:15PM]

What score did that monkey get?

[strider_mt2k @ Mar 18th 2007 4:17PM]

Mr. George Burns everybody!


(Oh go look it up.)

[john @ Mar 18th 2007 4:31PM]

monkey or larry king that is the question

[LukeA @ Mar 18th 2007 4:33PM]

Judging by the lack of suspenders...

[RijilV @ Mar 18th 2007 4:41PM]

so wait, if I don't look like a stunning woman I'm not attractive? Methinks their male-hetro-centric view of the world is a bunch of crap.

[Chris @ Mar 18th 2007 7:43PM]

You're probably one the ugly ones.

[Jean-Michel Decombe @ Mar 18th 2007 4:44PM]

It will be a sad day when everybody looks the same.

[Alan @ Mar 20th 2007 11:00AM]

"It'll be a sad day when everyone looks the same"

it'd make picking clothes easier though....and if you wanted to grow a beard......just find someone on the street and you'd know...hairstlyes too....the possibilities are endless

it'd be strange when drunk though...Being John Malkovich anyone?

[GameboyRMH @ Mar 18th 2007 5:44PM]

So it compares faces to a database to judge beauty? I was watching a documentary a few years ago, and saw that beauty ratings coincided with the level of symmetry of facial features, wouldn't this be a better (and more system resource-friendly) way of judging beauty?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symmetry_(physical_attractiveness)

Also that monkey does look a lot like Larry King, LOL!

[Dave @ Mar 18th 2007 5:49PM]

The monkey would need a slice down his arteries to look like Larry King. To find your identical "twin" you can up your pic to http://www.celebralike.com and find the celebrity or non-celeb that looks like you. Kind of a freaky way to find out if you've got a clone walking the earth.

[Jesse S @ Mar 18th 2007 6:31PM]

Why doesn't hot or not just pair this software with their site?

Then you can see how your opinion compared to the software?

(Yes, I know that I probably shouldn't be taking the title seriously.)

[Craigy @ Mar 18th 2007 6:56PM]

Its Frenchy!!!

[Russ @ Mar 18th 2007 10:10PM]

This guy morphed together photos of similar ratings on hotornot:
http://flickr.com/photos/40702206@N00/146532556

Similar project at a German university:
http://www.uni-regensburg.de/Fakultaeten/phil_Fak_II/Psychologie/Psy_II/beautycheck/english/index.htm

[CowboyGA @ Mar 19th 2007 9:43AM]

Ignoring the inevitable uproar of plump, homely women arguing that physical beauty doesn't matter...

This does warrant the question, "how did they judge the original beautiful women?" Supermodels wouldn't cut it. They may have a shape that clothing designers want, but many of them are plain or ugly. Pamela Anderson is supposedly hot, but I say she's haggardly at this point: I'd rather pick the main wife on "Yes, Dear."

The system for recognition could work very well, but only if knows what to look for.

[blore40 @ Mar 19th 2007 11:23AM]

Greenspan is no longer the Fed chairman. Stop reporting on him!

[qwertyblue @ Mar 19th 2007 11:23AM]

Can this be cross referenced with the beer goggle chart so we can get an acurate 1-10 rating depending on how drunk you are?

[macona @ Mar 19th 2007 12:03PM]

Remember:

Beauty is only skin deep...

But Ugly goes straight to the bone!