From 'Hmm...' to 'Godlike' – How to Measure Attractiveness with "Science”

Forget spending hours on end tweaking your Hello Cupid profile or relentlessly snapping swipe worthy selfies for your Tinder account. A brand new dating app is revolutionising online love by bringing an element of science to the process of finding ‘the one.’ Using an innovative algorithm BLINQ actively uses a robot to tell users how hot they are.

The app was developed by the University of Zurich, with Swiss scientists using artificial intelligence to rank photos on a six-point scale:

• Hmm..
• OK
• Nice
• Hot
• Stunning
• Godlike

When trialled by a Telegraph journalist the app came up with some surprising results. It estimated 56 year old Nigella Lawson’s age as 34, and gave her a ranking of ‘OK.’  Kylie Jenner was the epitome of gorgeous, with a rating of ‘Hot’ while Pippa Middleton outranked her royal sister to win the same status as Ms Jenner.

#howhot

The launch of the app has been accompanied by a #howhot hashtag that’s created quite the controversy. Some critics claim that the app is wildly vain and promotes insecurity, while others insist that it’s simply harmless fun.

Of course, the University of Zurich developers aren’t claiming that their app is the key to finding love, maintaining that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. On their website they advise users to keep the following points in mind when using the tool:

"Attractiveness is highly subjective and its perception differs from culture to culture.”

"Our algorithm is trained on the pictures of the BLINQ community that is mainly based in Switzerland. In other parts of the world the perception might be very different.”

"We do not show results for under aged people. Please only use our tool if you have reached adult age.”

"We do not save the uploaded image.”

"Have fun and don’t take the results too seriously."

Artificial intelligence is transforming the face of modern science. For more insight into the scope of its influence, ‘Is Automation the Key to LC-MS/MS Migrating from Research and Reference Labs to Hospitals and Clinics?’ offers readers a fascinating rundown of automation within the medical sphere. It proposes that LC-MS/MS testing is abandoned altogether in favour of fully automated systems that move samples through the full battery of sample-handling processes in preparation for LC-MS/MS analysis. Ultimately, this would allow clinical labs to achieve the desired balance of high quality, greater flexibility and reasonable cost.

Image via Flickr Creative Commons. Photo credits: MattysFlicks