What famous painting looks the most like you?

What famous painting looks the most like you? A new app from Google can tell you.

Welcome to Plain English for Thursday, January 25, 2018. I’m Jeff and this is the podcast for English language learners that goes just a little bit slower than normal speed. By listening, you’ll get used to the American accent, hear authentic words and phrases, and hopefully have some fun at the same time.

I’ve got great news for you if you’re from Brazil—and I know a lot of you are listening in Brazil. The transcripts on the web site now feature Portuguese translations of difficult words and phrases. To take advantage, all you have to do is go to PlainEnglish.com/15 and read the transcript as you listen. Every time you get to a highlighted word, just tap on it and it will show you the translation in Portuguese. You want to listen to the full episode and understand every word without having to press pause. Using these translations can really help you understand more of the show. And when you understand more, your confidence and comfort level with English will increase. These translations are available from English to Spanish, French, and Chinese as well.

But I’m really excited to offer this in Portuguese. Brazil has more listeners to Plain English than any other country in the world and I’m very happy to be able to offer this feature to all the Portuguese speakers in the audience. Once more just go to PlainEnglish.com/15 and read along.

What painting most resembles you?

If you’ve seen celebrities or even your friends post pictures of themselves alongside paintings or portraits, you’re not alone. That’s because the number-one selling app on both the iOS and Android app stores is now Google Arts & Culture, and in December it released a feature to match your face with a painting.

The app has actually been around since late 2015 and it features articles on artists and art history. You can also browse some of the world’s greatest artistic treasures on the app; it has collections from over 1,200 museums in 70 countries, so you can go on quite an artistic world tour right from your phone or tablet.

Believe it or not, though, a newfound interest in high art is not why Google Arts & Culture is so popular these days. In December, Google pushed out a new update in which the app began to offer users the chance to upload a selfie and find the one piece of artwor—from the world’s greatest collections of museums that most resembles the selfie-snapping user.

And that was all it took to go viral. A Google spokesman said, probably with a hint of irony, that they are “always trying to figure out cool and interesting ways to get people talking about art, and this was one of them.” And they have surely succeeded in getting people talking. The key thing that makes this new feature so popular is that the results are shareable—you can directly post your matches on social media, where they are sure to attract reactions from friends. It’s also funny, harmless and sometimes embarrassing. Journalists, celebrities and others have rushed to post their results online.

This feature of the app is only available in the United States—but not to everyone. I’d love to tell you what work of art most resembles me, but I can’t. That’s because I live in Illinois, and the feature is not available in my state or in Texas. Google hasn’t said exactly why, but it’s probably because Illinois and Texas have strong laws against use of biometric information like fingerprints or facial scans. That’s probably the same reason why the feature is not available in Europe or Canada, which all have stronger consumer privacy laws.

Google says it’s only going to use your selfies for the time it takes to make the match, but it could be using this as an opportunity to improve facial its recognition algorithms. Still, the willingness of people to upload their pictures for this purpose shows how accepted facial recognition now is in society. Do you remember when Facebook first started identifying people in your photos, even before you tagged them? It seemed so futuristic at the time, but now it’s commonplace. There’s even an app in Russia that lets you take a picture of a stranger and find that person’s social media accounts. I sometimes wonder if that’s where we’re going with so many facial recognition programs out there.

But let’s not let concerns about privacy distract us from pressing issues at hand—finding your double in art history. If you’re not in the United States, or if you’re in one of the states where it’s not available, you can always send your photo to someone in the United States who does have the feature and ask that person to run the search. But buyer beware—the results may not always be accurate. They can change depending on your facial expression or even the lighting in the room. One person found he was best matched with a girl in one photo, and a man with a goatee after trying again.

Of course, it didn’t take long for people to start pushing the limits of this app. Instead of uploading a selfie, one person uploaded a picture of a cartoon character and found that it matched with an abstract painting by Picasso. And a woman uploaded a picture of her dog, hoping to find a famous dog in history that looks like her pet—only to find her dog’s closest match is a former Prime Minister of France.

I want to say hi today to Lula, who’s a good friend of Plain English. Lula is from Albania but is right here in Chicago studying English full-time. Lula says she appreciates being able to hear how natives speak, but at a speed that she can understand. I’m really happy to hear that because that’s exactly what I intended with this podcast. So, a big thanks to Lula for being in the audience.