February 14, 2007

The Mona Lisa is "83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry"...

Yes, it's true. But the museum guards are 100% disgusted with looking after her.
Posted by Ann Althouse at 1:08 PM
Tags: , , ,

5 comments:

Josef Novak said...

"yes it's true..."

Well... not necessarily. This is just statistical speculation. The algorithms used to do facial recognition are essential the same as the ones used to speech (what I do) and they are exceptionally susceptable to the amount and quality of the data used to train them.

When it comes to speech, which changes rapidly over time, and was even more changeable prior to the advent of mass literacy, no training data recorded in 2007 could be reliably expected to recognize much of anything in 15th century Italian. Even if the training data was to be collected in present day Vinci. While facial expression has probably changed much less, I still find any claims about automated emotional recognition of centuries-old paintings extremely dubious.

Interesting for novelty's sake, but dubious nonetheless.

How sure are you even, of what the people around you are thinking, and feeling at any given moment?

But then again, you probably have your tongue in your cheek...

2/14/07, 2:13 PM
Anonymous said...

They should analyze some of those paintings of that Alfred E. Neuman guy.

2/14/07, 2:41 PM
XWL said...

As far as the disgusted guards . . .,

they're French, do they make French workers in any fashion other than disgruntled, disgruntled and striking, and or disgruntled, striking and agitating for less work hours and responsibility (at higher pay)?

2/14/07, 3:17 PM
MadisonMan said...

Would Mona Lisa be happier if today she received a nice big box of chocolate?

I agree that the mind-numbingly repetitive nature of the job of Museum Guide near the Mona Lisa would sear your soul. How many "original" jokes do Guards hear every day I wonder. But wouldn't you see that coming when you signed up for the work? Sure, maybe you're seeing more people now than when you started, but haven't you developed coping mechanisms, too?

2/14/07, 4:24 PM
vbspurs said...

Quoting the BBC article:

The painting was analysed by a University of Amsterdam computer using "emotion recognition" software.

Your tax Euros at work, ladies and gentlemen.

Actually, this study is rather fun. Who else could we now scan for correct emotion?

Michelangelo's David looks grumpy.

The Venus de Milo looks horny.

Our Lord reaching out to Adam on the Sistine Chapel looks like he could use a hug.

And Van Gogh looks like he's about to cut his ear off.

Really. We're dying to know the truth.

Cheers,
Victoria

2/15/07, 12:43 PM

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