Developers at Massachusetts General Hospital presented FaceAge, an innovative artificial intelligence system that determines a person’s biological age from a single photo of their face. This indicator reflects the actual condition of the body, not just the number of years lived. The technology is already being used in oncology to assess patients’ endurance for aggressive therapy, helping doctors choose a more suitable approach.
FaceAge analyzes visual markers of aging—wrinkles and changes in the volume and structure of the face. The algorithm allows an objective determination of how “worn” the body appears, doing so more accurately than a visual exam.
At the moment, FaceAge is undergoing testing. One challenge is the need to adapt it to different ethnic groups: so far, it has been trained on images of people with white skin. The developers say this is a matter of time.
The potential of FaceAge is significant: in the future, such technology could be used to assess health in broader practice—and possibly even with a regular selfie. It is a step toward personalized and more humane medicine.
