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Comment by TFortunato | Hacker News Reader

I tried the demo. A little sad, that it sees me as 12 years older than I am, and that I apparently always look angry and disgusted! I'm going to blame it on my glasses and bushy beard, and try to look at the bright side - apparently face scanning systems aren't quite good enough to get a read on me yet. (And try not to be too sad about looking like a grumpy old man)

(Anyone else with a glasses, a beard, or other non-typical facial features want to comment? I'm curious now how well their system handles these?)

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I uploaded Comrade Putin. [1]

Thinks he is 45 years old. He is 64! Not calibrated for the superior Russian genetics.

[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CuV5wciUAAA0aBz.jpg

It's hard to tell, with all the plastic surgeries.

Same experience here. Shows my age 10-15 years more than actual. I tried to smile and it just filled up the "disgust" bar. Neutral expression shows a high amount of "sadness". I wear glasses too, and have a slight beard.

I don't think glasses and beard are non-typical facial features!

I'm a 25 year old male, bald with a full beard, and it thinks I'm a 33 year old woman. At least it could tell I was happy?

and profession = circus sideshow?

A 33-year-old Russian woman?

Of course you look angry and disgusted. That's only natural, considering that you are aware of what's going on.

Bearded male here, and it got me exactly right the first time - 33 yr old male, 100% happiness.

The second time it thought I was 28, which increased my happiness even more.

Pretty good with me too. Guessed 51. I'm 53. My happiness was inscrutable.

MS did this one a while back to estimate age. I loaded some family members and it was on the majority quite accurate.

https://how-old.net/

With a bald head, beard/mo, and reading glasses it doesn't detect a face. Without the glasses it estimates me as 7 years younger than I am - and reasonably high on anger and sadness...

It added 5 years to my age (42) but got everything else right.

My partner tried it and it took 10 years off her age, and found an angry 31 year old man hiding in the folds of her clothing!

I did well... it said I was an angry 33 y/o male. Well, I am male... I'm almost 50... and I didn't think smiling at the camera conveyed anger... but who am I to question our AI overlords ;-)

(edit)... on the other hand they probably were just trying to sell product so thought flattery was the right approach...

Says I'm 4 years older than I am (31 / 27) and have high levels of sadness.

Covered up my receding hairline a bit and it said 29. I reckon if I shaved I could get it down to about 22 since that's how old people usually think I am.

Pulled a disgusted face and it said 47. Hmm.

It thinks I'm 15-20 years older than I am, and even if I smile it thinks I'm angry.

The real metric to judge it' s effectiveness is by comparing its accuracy to an average human observer's responses. I doubt a human would do a lot better at estimating someone's age.

Most people think I'm around 30 and I'm 42. The software said I was 40 the first time and 44 on the second try.

From the responses it feels like they are using aws recognition.

Don't think so - I just used the same pair of images - one with my glasses on and one without - AWS Rekognition guesses mostly the same for both of them - the sightcorp.com one doesn't even detect a face when I've got my glasses on.

Rekognition guesses a wider age range - but gets a "correct" answer - the sightcorp one guesses me as 7 years younger than I am.

I wonder if the age error is symmetrical, or if it tends towards guessing lower or higher? It would make for an interesting study.

Glasses and a beard. Pegged me as an angry white guy about five years younger than I am.

Apparently I'm a 40+ yr-old male. At least it got the "male" part right.

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