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Beauty In The Eye Of The Android 64

Posted by timothy from the artificial-non-intelligence dept.
rcswebb writes "According to this article at the BBC - Artificial intelligence experts in Fife (Scotland) have unveiled a robotic head which they say can scientifically determine how attractive women are to men."
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Beauty In The Eye Of The Android More

Beauty In The Eye Of The Android

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  • Oh no! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:36PM (#5284454)
    They've shoved the entire databse of hotornot.com into a robotic head?

  • In a general sense, maybe (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Twintop ( 579924 ) <david@twintop-tahoe.com> on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:37PM (#5284458) Homepage Journal
    One man is not attacted to the same exact things as any other man, whether it be a woman's face, eyes, legs, or other part of a woman's body. So before people start using this thing and taking it seriously (in other words PLEASE take what it says with a grain of salt, ladies...and some gentlemen too. :) ), remember this is just someting generalized to work in most cases for the masses. After all, we are human, this thing is not.

    • Re:In a general sense, maybe (Score:4, Insightful)

      by km790816 ( 78280 ) <[moc.liamekaens] [ta] [20xg3qhqw]> on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @08:20PM (#5284694)
      I agree with you on principle. Also keep in mind that the male mind has evolved to be attracted to certain features in a woman's face as a sign of age, fertility, and good genes.

      A face that is symmetrical and that does not have exaggerated features is a sign that the woman has good genes. (Exaggerated features appear when there is a lot of in-breeding.)

      Large lips, large eyes, high cheek bones are all caused by higher levels of estrogen, which points to good fertility. Same reason men like large breasts and curvy hips (in general.)

      Yes we are human, but we're also evolved, biological machines with some pretty well-tuned wiring to procreate.

    • Re:In a general sense, maybe (Score:5, Funny)

      by Bastian ( 66383 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @09:45PM (#5285138)
      I know there's a retort relating this comment to the penis size debate somewhere in here.

      I'm not touching it, though.

  • Beauty Recognition (Score:4, Funny)

    by mabster ( 470642 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:37PM (#5284466) Homepage Journal
    Hmm ... I can see it now. You set up a camera in a busy hall, and have it beep you at the appropriate time. Without even having to look at a monitor, you could know *exactly* when to 'accidentally' step out into the path of that hot chick.
    You just better hope the software is properly trained, or else you might step out into the path of Tito the body-building delivery guy.

  • How it works (Score:2, Funny)

    by PD ( 9577 )
    start with a score of 0;
    if eyes detect a mouth, score ++;
    if ears do not detect a voice, score ++;
    if nose does not detect a smell, score ++;
    if score == 3, return ATTRACTIVE;
    bags = 3 - score;
    return bags;

  • The potential .. (Score:5, Funny)

    by reyalsnogard ( 595701 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:42PM (#5284490)
    from the article:
    The artificial intelligence firm received its first prototype of the robot, nicknamed Doki, last week and is now mass producing the android.

    Initially it could be used as a receptionist-style greeting device.

    imagination: "Good morning. I find your facial features androgynous but, regardless, rate you a six. Thank you, and have a nice day."

    imagination2: "Would you like some coffee while I rate your sex appeal?"

    imagination3: "For a better rating, sit on my face .."

  • Great timesaver technology! (Score:4, Funny)

    by emcron ( 455054 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:42PM (#5284494)
    Now slashdotters can immediately determine that the woman they are drooling over will shoot them down!

    Think of the time that can be saved to put back into computers and doritos!

  • Not difficult (Score:4, Funny)

    by ObviousGuy ( 578567 ) <ObviousGuy@hotmail.com> on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:47PM (#5284516) Homepage Journal
    You just need to know the input parameters.

    Attractiveness = (Attractiveness Constant) * Alcohol consumed by the man / Amount of clothing on the women

    Like G, the value of the Attractiveness Constant is elusive.

  • This isn't exactly new, and other questions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by MBCook ( 132727 ) <foobarsoft@foobarsoft.com> on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:47PM (#5284520) Homepage
    First of all, why a robot head? All you need is a camera. That said, here is how this isn't exaclty new:

    I remember seeing on TV a few years ago (probably on Discovrey, but maybe TLC) a program that talked about what made people attractive (face wise) as part of a story on something else, plastic surgery I think. They talked about how it's based on some ratio that's found all over the body (fingertips are 1.something times longer than the next segment). So this guy came up with a geometrical "ideal" face showing the ideal ratio. Then they used computers to compare peoples faces to the way the "ideal" face was and made a "beauty index." They used examples like the Mad Magazine guy (very low), Cindy Crawford (high), etc. Things like symetry were taken into accound (the "line" they eyes are on should be parallel to the mouth "line", and perpendicular to the nose, things should be evenly spaced, etc.) Just take that, and combine it with other things ("hour-glass shape detector", etc.) and you end up with an automatic beauty detector.

    Just my 0.02, FWIW.

  • Inquiry (Score:3, Funny)

    by reyalsnogard ( 595701 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:47PM (#5284522)
    To be either malicious during AI training, or inquisitive of its effectiveness, I wonder what these AI constructs would do if presented images/likenesses of Julia Sweeney from "It's Pat!"

    Things that make you go 'hmmm..'

  • Hmmm... (Score:2, Funny)

    by espresso_now ( 219443 )
    I would ask what my chances are, but then I already know the answer.
  • After a looking at the the results of these experiments, one question came to mind.

    What's up with all the fat chicks? :)
  • How long until the porn industry utilizes this technology? After all, aren't they the early adopters? I can envision having a TGP porn searcher or automated casting searches.

  • With this unique scale... (Score:5, Funny)

    by therealmoose ( 558253 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @07:54PM (#5284568)
    it judges women's appeal on a scale of A, B, C, or D. It is apparently based upon the "CUP" system, must be some acronym.

  • It isn't nearly as subjective as one might think (Score:3, Interesting)

    by rw2 ( 17419 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @08:02PM (#5284601) Homepage
    People will complain about this measurement being subjective, but it isn't nearly as much as you might think. There are common features that statistically significant numbers of men are attracted to. I hate Julia Roberts, for example, but I'm willing to admit that most men find her hot. I love Salma Hayek, but realize that there are a handful of insane males that don't.

    So, folks, don't whine about the options here, Mr. Roboto will serve you well when you send him bar hopping to scout out the one with the hottest chicks.
    • Pointless and off-topic: Hells yeah! I've never understood the whole Julia Roberts thing. There are so many far morebeautiful women in the world.
      As far as Selma Hayek is concerned, I don't know anyone (women included) who wouldn't want to sleep with her.
    • I can't say either of these two women are my cup of tea. I've never even heard of Hayek until now. But I've found some pics on the net and I can say this.

      Hayek is bland. There is nothing particularly distinctive or memorable about her looks. She is certainly symmetrical and has nice skin, but you can computer-generate that stuff.

      Julia Roberts has quirky good looks. Her mouth is too big for "perfection" but it gives her a warm, happy look. She has character!

      Can't act though.

  • Designed By... (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    An army of geeks who couldn't get laid even if they wanted to.

  • Wow! (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Imagine a beowulf cluster of these! It'd be like a robotic fraternity at a college bar!
  • If the robot rates on "feminity", it might rank Oprah higher than a member of the Women's Swedish Swim Team, contradicting every man in the world.
    Also, there was a study in Discover(I think) that showed that digital "Averaging" of faces produced a face that was stunningly beautiful. However, while an "average" face might be ranked by a robot as beautiful, it might harshly rank offbeat faces that some people like, such as Julia Stiles and Christina Ricci.
  • how does this robot drink all of that scotch?

  • wrong body part? (Score:4, Funny)

    by ClosedSource ( 238333 ) on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @08:16PM (#5284679)
    I don't think the brain has a lot to do with it.
  • Does this mean that when robots take over the planet, only the beautiful people will be allowed to live?

    ...crap.

  • A Blessing! (Score:5, Funny)

    by TrebleJunkie ( 208060 ) <ezahurak@atlanticb[ ]et ['b.n' in gap]> on Tuesday February 11, 2003 @10:12PM (#5285261) Homepage Journal
    When this technology can be shrunk down and put in a wrist watch, it will be the drunk man's best friend.

    No more waking up next to Bo Diddly.

  • Geometry. (Score:1, Insightful)

    by LogicFlow ( 643300 )
    This is trivial. It's all geometry. Most noteably a semetrical face, but there's more to it than that. Width of mouth to width of nose, hips to waist, almost anything you can think of. The most common prefrences are well documented, and they are surprisingly exact. There has been a lot of work on this, it was only a matter of hooking up the specs to a camera and writing an algo to compare the two.
    I really doubt hair/eye color and such mean a damn thing to it.
  • I've often wondered if beauty wasn't a universial thing. For example, take flowers. Why do we find them beutiful? Do bees find them 'beutiful'? I dunno.

    Anyway, just as long as that robot stays away from my $%#$%#! girlfriend.

    • Most humans find nature unconditionally beautiful.
      When it comes to more everyday experience however, exceptions arise (like cows, pigs, bees, other smelly/nasty things).
      When it comes to attractiveness (based solely on looks), you'll react to the face that triggers the most "fertility" flags in your brain. This changes with experience, as its not a good reproductive strategy to keep chasing one type of person if all they ever do is chase you away. Mating with a specimin that did not score top on your fertility scale is better than not mating at all.

      Of course, this article is a lot of fuss over nothing - its probably just a neural net. The only time consuming thing would be getting all of the faces, and getting accurate ratings for them for "beauty" from real-life people. It'll probably have a very Westernized (more specifically Scottish) idea of what is beautiful.

    • I recall reading that flowers attract insects not because of their markings in the (human) visible spectrum, but because of additional ultraviolet markings along the petals, which act like "landing lights" for flying insects.

      Ah, here we go [fonz.org]...

      "Insects see a spectrum of colors that is shifted toward the shorter wavelengths of light. Their three kinds of cone cells respond to green, blue, and ultraviolet light. Ultraviolet light, like infrared at the other end of the spectrum, is invisible to us. Many insect-pollinated flowers display patterns that are visible only in the ultraviolet range. Flowers that look uniformly white, yellow, or blue to us often show striking patterns--like bull's eyes and road maps--that seem to guide insects to their nectar or pollen reward. (In other flowers, these patterns are visible to us.) Most insects do not see red, so a red flower would blend into the background for an insect. Red flowers are thus likely to be pollinated by birds, which have color vision more like our own."
  • I saw this article and had to double check the date to make sure it wasn't April 1st. Thought I'd entered a time warp!
  • "Psychological research has shown that a woman's attractiveness directly relates to her femininity and so we can also use this reading as a measure of a woman's attractiveness to men."

    Interestingly, the most "feminine" looking humans are -- babies! Big eyes, small chins, etc. I can't wait until someone comes in wearing an ET mask. It'd probably test off the scale. 8^D

  • C'mon guys, can't you take this seriously and have an intelligent discussion about this? I for one think this technology will be a boon to the blind.

    .

    .

    .

    . If you don't have something nice to say, don't say it at all.

  • It makes you wonder what would happen if they had it look at Michael Jackson. Perhaps "now" and "then" and tell the machine it's the same person.

    One might construe the audible "pop" to be affirmation that Mr. Jackson is the King of Pop.

    (sorry)

  • Hopefully they'll set this "guy" up as a designer in the android-woman factory. Of course, once in full production, one would hope they give him a really good personality to compensate for his hideous silver Pac-Man head. Then again, maybe that thick neck will gives him enough of the Henry Rollins look.
  • So, basically they determine how much flesh tone in is the image that the robot is looking at. More flesh color in the image the more attractive?

    Probably work for most slashdot types, eh?
  • The article refers to "web cameras mounted in the robot's head." Is the robot actually connected to the Internet, and thus able to transmit the images over the web? Or do they mean that cameras of the same type used for web cams, were used in the construction of the robot?
    I suspect that we have another case of the media creating its own new terminology-
    hacker = evil computer genius who does malicious things like create viruses
    "log on" to a website = view or browse any website, regardless of whether the site actually requires authentication
    webcam = any small camera hooked up to a computer
  • Wasn't this on Lexx?

    Hello, 790!

  • Periodically, (wo)men magazines run contests similar to: which actress/actor/personality has the most beautiful eyes; the best lips; cheeks; tits; etc...
    Then they have someone photoshop the results together on a single picture. I have always found the results strangely unatractive, and I wonder if this is due to lack of quality in the stitching job or to some more fundamental property of 'beauty'.
  • Any surprise that the inventor's name is "Cumming?"
  • As everyone knows, the point of AI is for the computer to learn by experience. As it makes its judgements, the human trainers have to tell it how well it did, so it has a baseline to learn from. Eventually, it's trained well enough to do its work autonomously.

    Now, considering that the human trainers are Scottish... will it find sheep attractive?

    [puts on flame-resistant kilt]
  • Androids around the world today are turning up in pieces, presumably from throwing themselves off tall buildings after realising the fact that no matter how beautiful the women is, they ain't gettin any....
  • An interesting effect of our information age is that people have an increased access to information that is unpleasant. Social psychology study after study demonstrates that attractiveness (at least for females) can be boiled down to geometry and that those specs are cross-cultural. Males evaluation of potential female mates is primarily based on attractiveness. In humans, the female produces 1 egg per month, has a 9 month gestation period, and produces a helpless baby that requires several years of care to survive, thus the females are selective and are motivated to seek resources and parental care in addition to "good genes", i.e. attractiveness. Males are motivated to procreate with as many attractive females as possible. That is my little sociobiology lesson, see E.O.Wilson for more. My point is, the robot discussed in this article could assign females a fairly accurate score for attractiveness, the single greatest factor in determine their value in the eyes of potential mates. This is not necessarily good news for the majority of women. I never understood why anyone would put their picture on HotOrNot.com, or any of those sites unless they were some kind of model. How difficult would it be to add this analysis to dating sites? As unpleasant as it may be, people tend to go for people of a similar level of attractiveness. Even if they would love to marry Elizabeth Hurley, they end up with someone who is more like themselves. The site could gruop people into levels of attractiveness, so that the really hot chicks wouldn't have to waste their time rejecting losers. This evaluation could be built into any system that used digital photos. Of course this would never happen, but you could imagine many positive and negative applications of this. Other human qualities such as intelligence can be quantified, but are less genetically-dependent than attractiveness. So here we have an example of technology providing us with some of the most important information we could ask for, how attractive is a potential female mate, and yet this information is probably too sensitive to be used in todays society.

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