HUMAN EXPRESSIONS SOFTWARE

According to research published in New Scientist the Mona Lisa is "mainly happy". This gem comes to us from boffins in Illinois, who used a computer developed at the University of Amsterdam (how embarrassing - two sets of noddies, some of them the otherwise sensible and cultured Dutch) to conclude that Leonardo's most famous sitter is 83% happy, 9% disgusted, 6% fearful and 2% angry. (Good to be precise. Stops us thinking.)

The abstract says the software looks at "key facial features such as the curvature of the lips and crinkles around the eyes, then scores each face with respect to six basic emotions." Six - so many!

The point of doing all this - it isn't just a stunted effort at art criticism, disappointingly - is to develop smarter software that can understand human expressions. Given that this seems most likely to apply to issues of identification, it's a shame more of us don't have the luck to have our passport photos done by a quattrocento master. It might take the indignity out of being forced to acquire an ID card.

You wonder why they have to stop there, of course, although fortunately specially created GU software enables us to carry this bold new research much further. Munch's Scream? 89% angst, 7% terror and 4% sheer boredom, the system says. Manet's A Bar at the Folies-Bergere? 60% ennui, 23% aggression and 17% embarrassment at being made to stand in front of a weird bloke with a moustache. I'm sure you can come up with others.