Have you ever heard of the FaceApp? The app that has gone hyper viral over the last few months, and among other things, generates a picture of what you will look like when you get old.

I’m not a big fan of these apps, and also not a big fan of posting personal pictures to the world to see. But, this one is unique in a few ways, so I took it for a test run. Check out the results below – pretty amazing hum?

But unlike the many apps, before that turned you old, this one is perfect and accurate. So after doing some further research and revving a lot of the comments left by #FaceAppChallenge – I realized that this is not just a filter, but artificial intelligence working at its best.

How did they do it? Well, they need two things to make this AI work very well.

1 – A great AI algorithm, which has been worked on and tweaked.

2 – Great data to work with to make the AI smart. What is this data? Do you remember #10yearchallenge earlier this year? That “fad” of posting a current photo on Facebook and Instagram alongside one from 10 years before to “see how you changed over time”.

Exactly, we gave them all these “Before and after” pictures as part of that campaign so that artificial intelligence could make you older, with short, long hair, blond, dark, bald, with a beard and the likes. After all, if you have the visual evolution from 10 years back to today in the system, it is easier to project what the future will look like.

Everything the app developers needed since 2017, we offer them within 1 month. A genius strategy, we have to admit.

And now the free app is starting to charge for filters and the removal of the watermark, so time to rake in the profits!

Well, that’s the story. Just another simple example of how easily we are manipulated. We guard our email and passwords with all safety measures, but then give away even more valuable information like there is no tomorrow!

We all need to put our phones down, stop sharing every minute of our lives with heavy filter photos, and get back to essential human connections. Invite a friend to lunch today and don’t post about it!