Adventures in Aging and Facial Recognition Software with the Leaders of the World

Microsoft has unveiled a new tool that allows users to upload photos to be examined for age and gender.

Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 6.25.52 PM
Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 6.25.52 PM

The machine learning team at Microsoft has come up with a fun little tool that allows users to upload photos for a piece of software to guess the age and gender of its subjects. We couldn't help but take it for a spin.

The machine learning team at Microsoft has come up with a fun little tool that allows users to upload photos for a piece of software to guess the age and gender of its subjects. We couldn’t help but take it for a spin.

Facial recognition software such as the one on display at how-old.net is of course the focus of intense work among the world’s intelligence agencies — and tech companies — but here we put it to more benign uses. The tool on display by Microsoft generally does a pretty good job of guessing its subjects’ ages, but its misfires also go to show how far technology like this has to go before being ready for prime time.

Now 62, Russian President Vladimir Putin only seems to look younger the longer he holds Russia’s highest office.

Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 3.25.46 PM

Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 3.25.46 PM

No one actually knows how old North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un is, but Microsoft’s tool puts it at 30. It also mis-identifies him as a woman.

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Screen Shot 2015-04-30 at 3.20.58 PM

It’s one of the most famous photographs of the post-9/11 era: President Barack Obama and his national security team monitoring in real time the mission to kill Osama bin Laden in Pakistan. Vice President Joe Biden, 72, gets a lot of favors here. CIA Director John Brennan, 59, does not.

OBL

OBL

Oh, and Secretary of State John Kerry appears to have not aged a day. Here he is, wandering back to talk to State Department staff on one of his near-constant trips across the world.

kerry1

kerry1

And here, Kerry gives testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971.

kerry2

kerry2

Indeed, the tool is far from perfect. Those cheeks belong to Prince George, third in line to succeed Queen Elizabeth.

prince

prince

Speaking of weirdly aged cherubs.

cherubs

cherubs

No one seems quite so well-preserved as a certain Athenian philosopher who died by poison hemlock.

soc

soc

ALEXEY DRUZHININ/AFP/Getty Images 

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