Microsoft’s “How Old Do I Look?” tool will try to guess the age and gender of the subjects of a photo uploaded to the website, how-old.net. While it is fairly accurate at identifying faces and determining gender, the ages it guesses can be hilariously wrong.

Josh Lowensohn, from The Verge, wrote, “Forget Minesweeper or Solitaire – this is the best game Microsoft has bestowed upon humanity.”

The site was unveiled at the Microsoft Build developer’s conference in San Francisco. It used Microsoft’s face detection API tools and its Azure computing platform. The tool is still under development. Under the results, the website reads, “Sorry if we didn’t quite get the age and gender right – we are still improving this feature”. The app is constantly looking for new photos and data to improve from, so it should, theoretically, improve over time.

The website was originally designed as a test site for the face identification software. Microsoft’s blog reveals that the creators were only expecting about 50 users to test it. However, within hours of its release, more than 35,000 people had tried it for themselves. Within four days, the site had received over 240 million pictures from 33 million users. It went viral and spread quickly through social media, with many posting the laughable results with the hashtag #HowOldRobot.

Many people have been playing with the #HowOldRobot by uploading photos of celebrities and videogame characters. The accuracy varies, but will provide a good laugh.

Microsoft promises that they do not save any of the pictures uploaded to the site. The machine only uses it when determining age and gender. Different photos of the same person can yield different results, so be sure to upload a few selfies before you get too offended.

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