You think looks ain't nothing but a number? You are absolutely right!

We've all heard the saying, "age ain't nothing but a number"; it's all in the head and how we perceive ourselves! We know there is a direct correlation between age and looks so we can restate this as “looks ain’t nothing but a number” except for one fact, we will be quite right if we put it this way.

The relationship between age and looks is blurry these days thanks to plastic surgeons and silicone/botox, however they are not the sole responsible for this misrepresentation.

Think of any of your favorite social media app with picture editing features; Instagram, Facebook, Flickr, Snapchat and pretty much all apps with picture editing features embedded has the ability to take years off our real age by making us look younger/prettier/more handsome than we actually are thus disrupting this delicate balance between age and looks.

If you have used this “special” feature before or you plan to use it in the future, you owe Artificial Intelligence a debt of gratitude because as it turns out, it is all about algorithm and numbers.

While a lot of people frown at the oversimplification of age (read: looks) as ‘only’ a number, Artificial Intelligence has proven this to be true with proliferation of the use of image filters/editors to look anything but our age!
Seam carving and Gaussian blur are two popular processing used in such image filters.

There are several other calculations done with algorithms that affect sizes and shapes of objects; you want to look slimmer, fatter, stodgier, younger, older, prettier or uglier? There are combinations of various low level processing decided by an algorithm that make this possible. You want to reduce image noise or improve an image severely corrupted by defective pixels? Algorithms to the rescue!

So after all, looks ain’t nothing but a number/a combination of numbers!

To get introduced to the world of algorithm-based look-enhancement, check out this great video (happy viewing!)