I google image search people a lot and work in the blind community where few people have their picture online, and I have noticed that the average of an image search for their name usually gives you an approximation of what they look like anyway, whether this is because of the ethnic history of names or association with friends who look like you I am not sure.

So this is a virtual entity created at first by averaging all of the images in a Google image search for instance of a persons name, with an algorithm that focuses on faces and decides whether something is an anomaly or not etc. This could eventually include videos and other stuff, writing etc to create an avatar/virtual self.
-- JesusHChrist, Jul 14 2014

Friends with Benefits http://phys.org/new...c-similarities.html
[JesusHChrist, Jul 14 2014]

Is this intended to use last names, first names, or full names?

Because I'm pretty sure the first wouldn't produce a close match in most cases, the last might, for some names, and full simply won't find enough matches in many cases to average.
-- MechE, Jul 14 2014


Maybe you could put into the algorithm to use whatever worked the most predictably, so if someone had a full name that was very exclusive to them and they were not online you could reduce it to their last name, and if someone had a really common name you could add in key words from any other information you had about them.
-- JesusHChrist, Jul 14 2014


If you happen to be named John Smith, unless you look like Captain John Smith, or the animated Disney version of the same, you're not going to have much luck with a match.

I think this is going to have severe problems with most common or very unique names. It might work for a certain subset of the middle ground, where most individuals who have it are closely related.

For instance, people with my last name tend to be relatively closely related to me, and my first name is not unusual in the family, but the image search turns up (besides lots of gravestones) people of differing genders and races about as frequently as it turns up actual relations.

It also turns up a lot marionettes (I actually know why, distant historical relation, with a similar not identical name was known for them), that would probably get averaged in, producing really odd results.
-- MechE, Jul 14 2014



random, halfbakery