There’s a new app about which purports to be able to guess your age from a photo. Journalists with nothing better to do have been putting politicians’ photos through it.
Buzzfeed has the UK leaders. Nick Clegg and David Cameron were born weeks apart, yet this app has Cameron at 56 and Clegg at 52. They are both 48. Whoops. 45 year old Ed Miliband will be happy that he was determined to be 38.
The Scottish leaders were assessed by the Scotsman. Ruth Davidson, the Tory leader, will be delighted to have lost 9 years and to be judged 27. Jim Murphy and Willie Rennie are among the fittest human beings on the planet. They run. A lot. Yet Murphy gains 18 years and Willie gains 26 years, putting him at 71. Nicola Sturgeon loses 8 years, judged at 36.
This is a slightly sweet moment for me. I am two months older than Willie Rennie. Yet I come in at almost 5 decades younger. I will never, ever let him live that down. I am that shallow.
Clearly it’s entirely accurate, then. After all, I don’t even feel that old.
Rumour has it that beards and glasses push up your age. One of my friends was well displeased to have gained 20 years when she looks nothing of the sort.
This is a complete and utter waste of time, but if you want to participate, you can do so here.
* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron's Musings. You can find her on Bluesky at caronmlindsay.bsky.social
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2 Comments
You might want to check the t&cs before uploading a photo. Doing so gives Microsoft the rights to use the image for any of their internet properties (including advertising other services). They maybe just covering all bases in a US legal sense but…
I see it primarily as a way of advancing Microsoft’s research in this field. I wasted just a few minutes on it. I was gratified that, with my beard and glasses, it knocked 7 years off my age.
I then tried it with a Xmas group photo (6 people from their 30s to their 80s) from 2006. One face it didn’t even spot; some of the others were about right or added a few years. It added a massive 25 years to one face. It got all the genders right.
Clearly some development needed.