How Normal Am I?

"How Normal Am I?" is a unique and critical interactive documentary created by Dutch artist and technology critic Tijmen Schep. This web-based experience invites users to turn on their webcams and subject themselves to a series of AI-driven facial analyses. Far from being a simple vanity tool, its primary purpose is to educate the public about the pervasive and often flawed nature of algorithmic profiling systems that are increasingly being used in society. The project, supported by the European Union's Sherpa project, aims to provoke a conversation about AI ethics, privacy, and the dangers of quantifying human traits.

The experience guides you through a narrative where various AI models analyze your face in real-time. It provides scores and predictions for your beauty, age, gender, Body Mass Index (BMI), and even life expectancy. The documentary cleverly exposes the fragility and biases of these algorithms. For instance, it reveals that the beauty-scoring AI was trained on data from a specific demographic, giving it a narrow standard of attractiveness. It also demonstrates how easily these systems can be manipulated—simply raising your eyebrows can alter your predicted BMI, and changing your head's angle can affect your predicted age.

A core tenet of "How Normal Am I?" is its commitment to privacy. All the complex AI analysis happens directly within your browser on your own device. No personal data, images, or facial 'fingerprints' are sent to the cloud or stored on any server, unless you explicitly consent at the end to share anonymized statistical data to help calculate a new average for future users. This design choice itself is a statement, proving that powerful AI applications can be built without compromising user privacy.

How to use How Normal Am I?

Using "How Normal Am I?" is a simple and guided process designed to be an interactive show:

1. Visit the official website at hownormalami.eu.
2. The website will request permission to access your webcam. You must grant access to participate in the experience.
3. Once the camera is active, the interactive documentary begins. A narrator will guide you through the process.
4. The AI algorithms will start analyzing your face in real-time. You will see on-screen feedback and results for various metrics.
5. The system will assess your beauty score, predict your age and gender, estimate your BMI, and even calculate your life expectancy based on the visual data.
6. Throughout the experience, the narrator explains how these technologies work, where they are used (e.g., by dating apps or insurance companies), and highlights their inherent biases and weaknesses.
7. At the end of the documentary, you are shown a summary of your results and compared to the average of previous users. You are then given the choice to contribute your anonymous data to help refine this 'normal' average. This choice is entirely optional and privacy-friendly.

Core Features of How Normal Am I?

• Interactive AI Documentary: An engaging, narrative-driven experience that uses you as the subject to critique AI technology.
• Multi-faceted Facial Analysis: The AI evaluates multiple attributes including a beauty score, age prediction, gender classification, BMI estimation, and life expectancy calculation.
• Bias and Manipulation Revelation: Actively demonstrates how algorithmic results can be skewed by biased training data and easily manipulated by simple user actions.
• In-Browser Processing: All AI calculations are performed locally on the user's device, ensuring that no personal facial data is sent to the cloud, thus guaranteeing privacy.
• Anonymized Data Contribution (Optional): Users can choose to anonymously share their results to contribute to the project's dataset, highlighting how 'normalcy' is a shifting, data-driven concept.
• Educational Narrative: The experience is guided by a host who explains the societal implications and ethical concerns of using such AI systems for profiling.

Use Cases for How Normal Am I?

"How Normal Am I?" serves several important purposes, primarily in education and public awareness:

• Educational Tool for AI Literacy: It's an excellent resource for students, journalists, and the general public to gain a practical understanding of how facial recognition and AI profiling work.
• Demonstration of Algorithmic Bias: It provides a concrete, personal example of how AI systems can be biased and unreliable, making abstract ethical concepts tangible.
• Sparking Public Debate: The project is designed to be a conversation starter, encouraging discussion about the role of AI in society, surveillance, and the ethics of data collection.
• Privacy Advocacy: It serves as a powerful case study for privacy-by-design, showing that it's possible to create compelling AI experiences without harvesting user data.

Advantages of How Normal Am I?

The main advantage of this tool is its unique and effective approach to a complex topic.

• Engaging and Personal: By analyzing the user's own face, it makes the abstract topic of AI bias deeply personal and memorable.
• Raises Critical Awareness: It successfully demystifies AI and empowers users to question the technologies that are increasingly shaping their lives.
• Privacy-First Approach: Its commitment to on-device processing sets a high standard for ethical AI development.
• Completely Free and Accessible: As a web-based project supported by public funding, it is available to anyone with a computer and a webcam, without any cost or subscription.

Pricing and Plans

"How Normal Am I?" is a non-commercial art and research project. It is completely free to use for everyone.