It’s a ton of fun—and very bizarre!—to try to predict the future. No matter how smart you (think you) are, you can never consider all the possible variables and how they’ll interact with each other. The general hope is that artificial intelligence tools might be (a bit) better at guessing the future than human beings. In some cases, these models are powerfully accurate… though, other times, they are limited and wildly wrong.
Recently, people all over the internet have been comparing photos of what they look like now versus what ChatGPT thinks they’d look like aged up, based on their childhood photos. Our team at Bored Panda has compiled a list of these side-by-side prediction vs. reality pics to show you how eerily (in)accurate generative AI can sometimes be. Scroll down to look at the photos.
#1 I Asked Chatgpt To Predict What I’d Look Like At 36 Using My 12-Year-Old Photo. Here’s ChatGPT’s Prediction vs. My Actual Face
Image credits: nrlhakimin
#2 Yall I Can’t With This. Why Did It Make Me So Jacked
Image credits: briana.c.roberts
#3 Ha Love This! Mine Didn’t Come Out Very Similar But I Still Enjoyed Looking At Everyone’s
Image credits: charmaineej
There’s a lot of hype, joy, anger, and distrust surrounding generative AI tools. It’s a very emotionally messy subject. You’ll find many people who have embraced the ongoing technological shift, integrated tools into their lives, and swear by them. That’s on top of the countless people using these models for fun, to power up their businesses, or even for something as sensitive as therapy and relationship advice.
On the other hand, there are plenty of (healthy) skeptics out there, too, who think the over-the-top hype doesn’t match the actual usefulness of these models. Not to mention all the artists, writers, and creatives who don’t exactly enjoy having their hard work scraped and plopped into datasets used to train the latest AI models. Without their permission, of course.
And let’s not forget how many folks in white-collar positions are scared that they’ll be replaced by cheaper (and arguably worse-performing, unreliable, unimaginative) models.
#4 Not Even Close
Image credits: dianrosianti
#5 For Him... Age Is Just A Number
Image credits: cr7editz222
#6 That's Close
Image credits: lenasophiedraffehn
Using LLMs (large language models) and generative AI might be handy, but it comes at a steep cost. Relying on them too much can erode your critical thinking skills, among other things.
Reporting on new research conducted by MIT’s Media Lab, Time Magazine explains that ChatGPT users had lower brain engagement than regular writers. The former “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels” when using gen AI for essays.
#7 I Asked It To Predict Me At 25… It Got The Hair Right
Image credits: zenia
#8 Asked What I’d Look Like Age 40, The Middle Pic. The Last Pic Is Lunch Time Today, Age 41. I Think The 80’s Florals Has Thrown It Off
Image credits: lanebroughton
#9 I Gave It Some Grace And Asked For It To Be Aged Up To 30 (I'm 42) It Made Me A Different Ethnicity (I'm Sicilian)
Image credits: spikeschilde621
According to the study, the individuals using ChatGPT actually got lazier with each essay they had to produce. By the end of the study, they often just copied and pasted whatever was generated.
While the study is relatively small and not yet peer-reviewed, the implication is more or less clear. Relying on LLMs might be convenient, but it harms brain development.
#10 Mine Was Hysterically Bad. I Gave It A Photo Of 16-Year-Old Me And Asked It To Age It Up To 41
Image credits: virginiaclaire1
#11 Damn They Took My Asian Half
Image credits: maikapuff
#12 Me As A 30 Year Old
Image credits: hiyabyeyah
“What really motivated me to put it out now before waiting for a full peer review is that I am afraid in 6-8 months, there will be some policymaker who decides, ‘let’s do GPT kindergarten.’ I think that would be absolutely bad and detrimental. Developing brains are at the highest risk,” says the study’s main author, Nataliya Kosmyna.
#13 I’m Deaddddddd It Thought I Was A Boy At First And Then Still Proceeded To Get It Entirely Wrong
Image credits: ghinzzzzzz
#14 I Asked Chatgpt To Predict What I’d Look Like At 33, Using My 10 Year-Old Photo From My 5th Grade Picture. Here’s ChatGPT’s Prediction vs. My Current Face At Age 33
Image credits: mama_mae28
#15 Asked ChatGPT To Predict What I Would Look Like At 30-Year-Old Based On A Picture Of Me At 4. It Definitely Did Me Dirty. Me At 4, 30-Year-Old Prediction And Me Now At 28
Image credits: emilee_elegance
In the meantime, other recent studies have found that people feel lonelier and socialize less the more they spend time chatting with ChatGPT.
In particular, people who trusted the chatbot and tended to get emotionally attached in real relationships felt lonelier and more emotionally dependent on ChatGPT.
Furthermore, discussing general topics led to more emotional dependence on ChatGPT, while discussing personal topics led to feelings of loneliness in the short term.
#16 This Is What It Would Think I Would Look Like At 24 And 36 vs. How I Actually Looked Like At 24 And Look Like At 36
Image credits: mr.fivespice
#17 Chatgpt’s Prediction vs. Actual Face
Image credits: hanisssssssss
#18 Im Turning 30 And Mine’s Not Even Close
Image credits: alyfabie
Even though many people have found uses for generative AI, like automating mundane work, these tools aren’t as powerful and reliable as some companies might have you believe.
Gary Marcus, a professor emeritus at New York University, author, and the founder of two AI companies, is one of the most insightful voices on the internet when it comes to speaking about the limitations and drawbacks of gen AI.
In a recent republished adaptation of his Substack essay in The Guardian, he covered Apple’s recent research paper about how LLMs and LRMs (large reasoning models) are limited in their reasoning, understanding, and general intelligence.
#19 Mine
Image credits: milla_shawty
#20 I Asked ChatGPT To Predict What I’d Look Like At 23 Using My 6-Year-Old Photo. Here’s Chatgpt’s Prediction vs. My Actual Face. Haha That's A Huge Difference
Image credits: sadboy.tut
#21 I Asked ChatGPT To Predict What I’d Look Like At 23 Using My 12-Year-Old Photo. Here’s Chatgpt’s Prediction vs. My Actual Face
Image credits: achumakotishini10
According to Marcus, Apple’s paper showed that models like ChatGPT, Claude, and Deepseek might appear to be smart. However, they collapse when complexity rises.
“In short, these models are very good at a kind of pattern recognition, but often fail when they encounter novelty that forces them beyond the limits of their training,” Marcus writes. He notes that the irony is that these models are explicitly designed for reasoning tasks.
#22 I Asked ChatGPT What I'd Look Like As An Adult, Using My 15 Year Old Picture. The Last Photo Is What I Actually Look Like
Image credits: daphnekrapausky
#23 Showing My 12 Year Old Photo, Asked ChatGPT To Show My 50 Year Old Version. Here Is What It Predicted vs. Real Me
Image credits: nairjayashree
#24 ChatGPT’s Prediction vs. Reality
Image credits: applleung
Marcus points out that the recent paper amplifies an argument that he’s been making ever since 1998. “Neural networks of various kinds can generalise within a distribution of data they are exposed to, but their generalisations tend to break down beyond that distribution.”
When models work on tasks that are relatively close to the data they’ve been trained on, they perform fairly well.
However, “as they stray further away from that data, they often break down, as they did in the Apple paper’s more stringent tests. Such limits arguably remain the single most important serious weakness in LLMs.”
In other words, while useful, LLMs are still far too limited and flawed to lead to AGI (artificial general intelligence, which matches or surpasses human intelligence) that could “fundamentally transform society for the good.”
#25 Just Turned 20 , I Told Chat To Show Me What They Think I’d Look Like In The Next 10 Years
Image credits: lay.kaniii
#26 I Asked Her To Predict My Current Age 32 Lmao
Image credits: lizagunawan93
#27 I Asked Chatgpt To Predict What I’d Look Like At 30 Using My 5-Year-Old Photo. Here’s ChatGPT's Prediction vs. My Actual Face
Image credits: sohaimamusic
Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments at the very bottom of this post, Pandas. Which of these prediction vs. reality pics surprised you the most? How often and for what purposes do you use ChatGPT and other chatbots?
Do you think gen AI models would be able to accurately predict what you look like now, based on a single photo of you when you were little? How worried are you about your job being replaced by AI?
#28 I Asked ChatGPT To Predict What I Would Look Like At 53 According To Me At 21. This Is The Real Me At 53. What Do You Think?
Image credits: xpressingme_model
#29 I Asked Chatgpt To Predict What I’d Look Like At 33, Using My 13-Year-Old Photo From My 1st Day In Swedish High School (Högstadiet)
Here’s ChatGPT’s prediction vs. my current face at age 32 (soon to be 33).
Image credits: ladyinaafoose
#30 They Tried LOL
Image credits: w.waifu
#31 Me At 3, I Asked For 27. I Think It’s A Little Off?
Image credits: dr.hdez
#32 Not Even Close
Image credits: mariamelheneidyy
#33 Oh
Image credits: thecosywitchshop
#34 I Do Not Know That Woman And She’s Creeping Me Out
Image credits: ladybugsarah86
#35 Curiosity Got The Best Of Me After I Saw Someone Ask ChatGPT To Predict How’d They Look Based Off A Kid Photo, So I Gave It A Shot And Asked It What I Would Look Like At 34
Image credits: literally_lizz
#36 The First Is My 6th Grade Yearbook Picture. The 2nd Is What It Thought I Would Look At 38. The 3rd Is What I Actually Look Like At 38
Image credits: lacocinha
#37 Asked It For Age 26
Image credits: brittney__.lee
#38 13 vs. 25.. Ehh
Image credits: clock.junk
#39 Woww Chat GPT. I Use My Pic (24 Years Old) And vs. Me Now
Image credits: marhazleynn94
#40 AI Is Wildly Inaccurate With Predicting How Children Will Look As They Grow. I Put In A Photo Of Me As Child And Asked It To Predict What I Would Look Like As A 30 Year Old Adult
Image credits: digitalsamiul
#41 This Ain’t Me (I Asked Chat GPT To Age Up To Age 20)
Image credits: iiamolubaby
#42 This Is So Funny Dude I Asked To Age Me To 36. I Used A Pic Of Me At Like 22? I Think. I Just Turned 36
Image credits: kaseyoudidntknow
#43 This Is What It Gave Me
Image credits: aymatsumura
