Asia | Cosmetics Business News

A Hong-Kong based technology company is pushing the boundaries of what consumers perceive as ‘a thing of science fiction’ and reality. Wayco International has created the first international beauty contest to be judged by robots, or rather, complex algorithms.

Entries for both contestants and algorithms are being called for submission via a specially designed app called Beauty.AI. After downloading the app, consumers are instructed to take a selfie, which will go on to be judged by a ‘robot jury’ before a beauty queen and king are crowned. Consumers are not allowed to wear make-up or glasses, and must not sport a beard when taking their selfies.

Algorithms that will be used to judge the contest will take into account a number of parameters including: wrinkles, face symmetry, skin colour, gender, age group and ethnicity.

Wayco explained that one of its motives behind creating the app and contest is to explore perceptions of beauty and health based on appearances. On its website it cites the potential for medical professionals to diagnose and analyse a person’s health by merely looking at photos as an area of interest when developing the new app. However, it added: “But evaluating beauty and health is not enough. The team’s challenge is to find effective ways to slow down ageing and help people look healthy and beautiful.”

The app’s creators partnered with Microsoft, Nvidia, Cyber Future, Model Alliance, Future Technologies, RYNKL and Youth Laboratories on the project.

Alexey Shevtsov, Co-Founder of Youth Laboratories, said: “Artificial intelligence systems have already surpassed humans in image recognition, and it is only a matter of time before robots will be able to evaluate human visual appeal, engage in fashion design and even make perfumes. We decided to build a platform which will help bridge some of the most advanced humans – those who are interested in robot opinion and those developers, who are building intelligent systems to understand the beauty function. We want to turn this into a quarterly contest, which will attract more algorithms and more people interested in getting an impartial perception of their beauty, taking into consideration their age, gender and thousands of other parameters.”

The deadline for entries for consumers is 15 January, and data scientists, 20 January.

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