The Google Arts & Culture app that went viral for its unique feature that allowed users to take selfies and let them match with famous portraits in international museums – is now available for free download in India.

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They say ‘there are seven lookalikes in the whole world’, which means there are six other people who look like you somewhere around in some corner of world. Well, you might not believe that but Google Arts & Culture app’s new feature called ‘Is my portrait in a museum?’ likely to find you a portrait that matches your selfies. The job of this Google app feature is to let you take a selfie and then match it with an artwork that matches the selfie, lying around in some corner of the world in some famous or not-so-famous museum. So it is like finding ‘your’ portrait painted by some well-known artist that you have no idea about.

Google uses a bits of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and algorithms to match a selfie uploaded by users and digs in the database of pictures from more than 1500 museums from 70 countries across the world. The unique feature was initially launched just in US and the facial recognition feature had managed to woo Americans so much that the app almost topped in Apple App Store and jumped up in Google Play Store; however, it was just limited to the US. But in a recent update, the portrait feature has rolled out in a number of countries, including India. Yay!

All you need to do is download the ‘Google Arts & Culture’ app for free, scroll down on home page and find ‘Search with a selfie’, click a selfie and then leave it to the app. In a couple of moments, the app will come up with at least one match of portrait in any art museum somewhere in the world – which matches your selfie. There can also be multiple matches found with the percentage of matching with your selfie mentioned. However, don’t expect it to be too flattering because some people have found their true doppelgangers out there, but we can’t expect technology to be always bang on. Sometimes it might as well match your picture with an old white haired lady, or a corpse or an old man – you never know.

Oh and some sceptic users might as well think that the app may be a sneaky way for Google to collect pictures and use it for perfecting its facial recognition technology. If you think that, let me tell ya, nobody wants your pictures, okay? And if Google wants it, it doesn’t need an app feature for that, they already have hands on pretty much everything.  That, and the fact that Google has confirmed that the feature never identifies the user in selfie and is only used to match with pictures in its Arts & Culture database. So yes, it seems that the app feature is safe to give a try – as long as you’re not afraid of feeling, like some of us, a little bewildered by Google’s opinion of your face. Go play.

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