This software EFFING sucks

The Swiss dating site Blinq has teamed up with ETH Zurich, a University, to build a web application and mobile app that tell you how attractive you are, based on the preferences of Blinq’s users. Apparently, the Swiss are as cuckoo as their clocks, because the app revealed to me that they have NO GODDAMN TASTE WHATSOEVER.

Here’s how a recent photo, taken in St. Pete the day after Christmas, got rated:

“Hmm…”? Let’s try another one. How about the selfie I sent to my wife from the wifi-equipped flight to India in October?

Just “Ok”? That, my friend, is a frickin’ book jacket-worthy author photo. At least it thinks I look young.

On a lark, I tried this photo from the day after Thanksgiving, featuring a “Cleopatra”-style headdress at one of the Busch Gardens gift shops:

Geez. And it thinks that the 1980s-era Stevie Wonder look makes me seem even younger.

I decided to challenge the algorithm with a photo of me demonstrating a duct tape hack for my CPAP mask (I was traveling and had forgotten the straps for the mask at home). Here’s the result:

This one, it liked. Apparently the Swiss are into the Hannibal Lecter/“Dennis Hopper huffing nitrous in Blue Velvet“ (warning: swearing aplenty) look.

Then I found out about how other, less conventional images scored with the software. Here’s Guy Fieri:

Really?

Then there’s how it rated the image below:

And finally, this image of “Lumpy”, Chewbacca’s son from the oh-so-seventies, oh-so-terrible Star Wars Holiday Special:

GOD DAMMIT.