Could AI Use a Simple Photo of Your Face to Reveal Clues About Your Health?

Scientists at Mass General Brigham in Somerville, Mass., built Foundation Artificial Intelligence for Health Recognition, or FAHR-Face, a large AI model trained on more than 40 million facial images, according to a press release.

“To our knowledge, this is the first demonstration that an AI model can directly predict cancer survival from a simple photograph,” he explained.

The aim is for the model to help doctors assess health and survival outcomes, rather than replace physicians outright.

“Our goal is to make face photograph-based health assessment more quantitative, consistent and scalable so it can support personalized treatment decisions rather than replace physician judgment,” said Mak.

Participants can upload a photo of their face and find out some information about their own face, while contributing additional data to the ongoing research at the same time.