Face My Age: Selfies reveal how you age, when you'll die
CHICAGO -- Selfies could determine how long you are going to live, according to facemyage.com.
Created by two professors - Dr. S. Jay Olshansky at University of Illinois at Chicago and Dr. Karl Ricanek Jr. at University of North Carolina Wilmington - facemyage.com uses selfie photographs to estimate how someone is aging by comparing it to other selfies in the database of people with the same background and age.
"Our facial recognition technology detects these differences with a high degree of precision, enabling us to determine whether your face looks older or younger than other people your age," according to the website.
The site uses facial recognition technology to detect signs of aging: sagging muscles, wrinkles, and age spots. The system also looks at the size of someone's lips, which become thinner with age, and the size of your nose, which becomes more bulbous.
"The bottom line is that if our technology tells you that your face age is 50, and you're actually 60, that means your face looks exactly10 years younger than all other people your age," according to the site.
Once someone has uploaded a well-lit, face-forward, hair-pulled-back and no-smile selfie, the site uses the same data available to insurance companies to estimate a lifespan.
"While we can't predict your exact duration of life, we can reliably predict, on average, how long people like you will live," according to the site.
The site is quick to point out that the chances that you'll live longer than estimated are about 50-percent.
The site indicates facemyage.com is looking to build its database.
