• Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    sigh

    The news:

    So, in conclusion: If your face is large, you’re a conservative; if it’s skinny, you’re a liberal; and facial recognition is bad—we all know that. That seems to be all you need to know.

    The paper:

    Our results, suggesting that stable facial features convey a substantial amount of the signal, imply that individuals have less control over their privacy. The algorithm studied here, with a prediction accuracy of r = .22, does not allow conclusively determining one’s political views, in the same way as job interviews, with a predictive accuracy of r = .20, cannot conclusively determine future job performance.

    r=0.22 is a weak to moderate correlation, btw. An actual predictor will need more data than just one’s face in order to have a decent chance.

    • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      you’re putting mental traits in the same bucket as political leaning?

      this is not at all what the study is about…

      • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        They are both mentalities.
        And while political affiliation is a weaker mentality trait than tendency for crime, that only makes it more impossible to determine.
        Apart from some possible minor differences in things people do themselves, like how they have their hair or makeup.
        But that can never be definite, since it’s a matter of fashion.

        • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          They are both mentalities

          Who defines political orientation as a property of the brain? It’s socially established.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            So is crime, ultimately both stem from a sense of self interest vs right and wrong, or lack of it.

            • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              idk what Phrenology or crime have anything to do with the study and I’m yet to see an argument for it

              • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                The headline is clearly false, you can’t tell political affiliation just by looking at a persons face.
                Maybe in USA you have a slightly better chance than random, because age and gender alone will give a statistical difference. But the claim of the headline remains false.

                The claim of the headline is reiterated in the article:

                A study recently published in the peer-reviewed American Psychologist journal claims that a combination of facial recognition and artificial intelligence technology can accurately assess a person’s political orientation by simply looking at that person’s blank, expressionless face.

                Further down:

                So, according to this theory, if you have a tiny face, you’re probably a progressive. Or, by contrast, if you have a big fat face, there’s a good chance you might be a Trump voter.

                This simply can’t be true, if it was the attempt at a Phrenology/Craniology science would have detected it 200 years ago.

                • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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                  7 months ago

                  100% a response to the headline, which clearly must be false

                  It is, my bad - I thought that was obvious. The headline and the article conclusion contradict the study itself, it’s just clickbait.

                  But the study is not invalid because of it.

        • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Phrenology is bullshit. Race has been shown to correlate with political leaning several times and it’s encoded as facial attribute. Also correlate income, education, and location.

          • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            It turns out that people in similar situations want similar things from their governments. It also turns out that a history of oppression based on race tends to put people from that race into a similar situation. And so on.

            The correlation isn’t coming from anything specific to the face, but clues about what demographic that individual could be from.

          • Buffalox@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Absolutely not, social status yes, but oppression of a race, doesn’t mean the race has a tendency, only that they are pressured into a social status that has that tendency.

            • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              You’re the one bringing oppression and phrenology, that’s not what the study is about.

  • bender223@lemmy.today
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    7 months ago

    Sure, AI can do anything, but can it tell us why kids love the taste of Cinnamon Toast Crunch™️?

    • Eager Eagle@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      about 98% 50% of the time

      jokes aside, this is just another clickbaity headline that distorts the actual conclusion of the study

  • slacktoid@lemmy.ml
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    7 months ago

    This is obviously a lie. The only thing you can tell about a person by looking at their face is whether they are a cop or not. More thumb shaped more likely they are a cop. /s

  • veee@lemmy.ca
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    7 months ago

    According to this analysis—and, I have to warn you, it’s kinda funny—liberals and conservatives have markedly different facial morphology. Liberals have “smaller lower faces” and “lips and noses [that] are shifted downward,” and chins that “are smaller” than conservatives, researchers write. Researchers repeat the key conclusion later on: “liberals tended to have smaller faces.”

    So, according to this theory, if you have a tiny face, you’re probably a progressive. Or, by contrast, if you have a big fat face, there’s a good chance you might be a Trump voter.

    • AbidanYre@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      “liberals tended to have smaller faces.”

      Charlie Kirk clearly wasn’t in that training set.

  • catloaf@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I’m not giving gizmodo a click, but I’d be happy to read the study if anyone has a link. Mostly I want to know if they controlled for weight. There is a correlation between urban, liberal, and healthy, and between rural, conservative, and overweight.

  • Mwalimu@baraza.africa
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    7 months ago

    We demonstrate that political orientation can be predicted from neutral facial images by both humans and algorithms, even when factors like age, gender, and ethnicity are accounted for. This indicates a connection between political leanings and inherent facial characteristics, which are largely beyond an individual’s control. Our findings underscore the urgency for scholars, the public, and policymakers to recognize and address the potential risks of facial recognition technology to personal privacy.

    “peer-reviewed” bullshit.

  • db2@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I believe it, I’m correct about it like 98% of the time too.

  • otp@sh.itjust.works
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    7 months ago

    I recall studies that have found correlations to…maybe it was the size of brain structures? (Specifically the amygdala)

    I wouldn’t be surprised if there were something confounding that resulted in both a larger amygdala and some sort of change in facial structure.

    But given that this article misrepresents the findings of the article, I wouldn’t put too much weight on it.