People Are Using the FaceApp Aging Filter to Prove They Look Exactly Like Their Parents
Hopefully this is good news.
Artificial Intelligence is probably going to be a seismic technological development — just ask Steven Spielberg — but it’s most popular application to date is decidedly frivolous.
FaceApp is a smartphone application that uses the technology to demonstrate a variety of “What if” scenarios for your face. “What if your hair was a different color,” “what if you were the opposite gender,” etc. The company got in some hot water with a “what if you were (insert race)” a few years ago — for obvious reasons — but it’s struck viral social media gold with its latest filter, “what if you were old,” which is essentially the “Mommy, What Will I Look Like?” bit from Arrested Development come to life.
The app uses neural networks to predict how time might ravage your appearance: how your face will wrinkle, where your hair will go grey, and how your cheeks will sag.
The amusement of seeing what a computer thinks you’ll look like as an adult is obvious, but what’s crazy about this filter is how much the artificially aged versions of people look like their parents.
It’s not exactly surprising that what the app thinks older you will look like is someone who gave you half of your genetic material, but there is something compelling about seeing it with your own two eyes. Lots of people took to Twitter to share what the app thinks they’ll look like alongside a present-day picture of their parent.
If you’re curious about what you will look like when your older, you can download FaceApp from the major app stores. Alternatively, you could just give you parents a video call — they’d probably say your overdue on that one anyways.
