Somewhere in the World, There’s a Painting That Looks Like You. Google Will Find It.

image via The Washington Post
image via The Washington Post
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Somewhere in the World, There’s a Painting That Looks Like You. Google Will Find It.

image via The Washington Post
image via The Washington Post

Apps that involve uploading one’s face, getting feedback and sharing the results aren’t always a great idea. But the latest iteration of the Google Arts & Culture app, which promises to scour more than 1,200 museums in over 70 countries to find one’s art doppelganger, has become a viral hit.

Though the Google Arts & Culture app has been available since 2016, the find-your-art-lookalike feature was released with its latest update in mid-December. (“Take a selfie and discover if your portrait is in a museum,” the release notes read, before also promising the usual “bug fixes and minor improvements.”)

Google spokesman Patrick Lenihan told The Washington Post that the feature was an idea someone had last year and was incorporated into the app with little fanfare. Its popularity has been completely organic, he added.

“We’re always trying to figure out cool and interesting ways to get people talking about art, and this was one of them,” Lenihan said.

In recent days, scores of people — including plenty of celebrities — have shared their often hilarious results on social media, helping Google Arts & Culture climb the App Store’s charts to become the most downloaded free app.

Quite a few were pleased with their matches. According to the app, comedian Kumail Nanjiani was a 59 percent match with a mixed-media portrait of Mohammed Al Mazrouie at the Barjeel Art Foundation in the United Arab Emirates.

“Hey this one ain’t so bad,” Nanjiani tweeted.

Musician Pete Wentz and actress Felicia Day seemed generally satisfied about their results.

“Feel real strong about my 40%,” Wentz tweeted of a match that paired him with a self-portrait of Rembrandt.

But the app has delivered matches that had some wondering whether it was intentionally trolling them. As Mashable’s Brian Koerber discovered, uploading different selfies (“the less flattering the photo, the better”) often resulted in different, equally amusing results.

And, lest you run out of faces to make, the app doesn’t just deliver results for humans.

The Washington Post



Trump Joins Tech and Energy Executives amid AI Push

A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
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Trump Joins Tech and Energy Executives amid AI Push

A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo
A car drives past a building of the Digital Reality Data Center in Ashburn, Virginia, US, March 17, 2025. REUTERS/Leah Millis/File Photo

President Donald Trump will join executives from some of the largest US tech and energy companies for a summit in Pittsburgh on Tuesday as the administration prepares fresh measures to power the US expansion of artificial intelligence.

Top economic rivals US and China are locked in a technological arms race over who can dominate AI as the technology takes on increasing importance everywhere from corporate boardrooms to the battlefield.

The Energy and Innovation Summit at Carnegie Mellon University is expected to bring tech executives and officials from top energy and tech firms including Meta, Microsoft, Alphabet and Exxon Mobil to discuss how to position the US as a leader in AI. Trump will use the summit - put together by US Senator Dave McCormick, a Republican ally from Pennsylvania - to announce some $70 billion in artificial intelligence and energy investments in the state, Reuters reported.

Big Tech is scrambling to secure vast amounts of electricity supplies to power the energy-guzzling data centers needed for its rapid expansion of artificial intelligence. Companies began announcing their plans in early on Tuesday, with Google inking a $3 billion electricity deal and CoreWeave touting a $6 billion AI data center.

Google will invest $25 billion in regional data centers, while FirstEnergy will invest $15 billion in Pennsylvania's energy grid, Semafor reported. The CEOs expected to attend include Khaldoon Al-Mubarak of Mubadala, Rene Haas of Arm, Larry Fink of BlackRock, Darren Woods of ExxonMobil, Brendan Bechtel of Bechtel and Dario Amodei of Anthropic. The White House is considering executive actions in the coming weeks to make it easier for power-generating projects to connect to the grid and also provide federal land on which to build the data centers needed to expand AI technology, Reuters previously reported.

The administration is also weighing streamlining permitting for data centers by creating a nationwide Clean Water Act permit, rather than requiring companies to seek permits on a state-by-state basis.

Mike Sommers, head of the influential American Petroleum Institute, said executive action is welcomed to unlock the energy needed to power the data centers, but a more durable solution is needed.

"Real durable permitting reform requires an act of Congress, not just an executive order," Sommers said in an interview with Reuters. Trump ordered his administration in January to produce an AI Action Plan that would make "America the world capital in artificial intelligence" and reduce regulatory barriers to its rapid expansion.

That report, which includes input from the National Security Council, is due by July 23. The White House is considering making July 23 "AI Action Day" to draw attention to the report and demonstrate its commitment to expanding the industry, Reuters has reported.

US power demand is hitting record highs this year after nearly two decades of stagnation as AI and cloud computing data centers balloon in numbers and size across the country. The demand is also leading to unprecedented deals between the power industry and technology companies, including the attempted restart of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania between Constellation Energy and Microsoft.

The surge has led to concerns about power shortages that threaten to raise electricity bills and increase the risk of blackouts, while slowing Big Tech in its global race against countries like China to dominate artificial intelligence.