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Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

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Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#31

Post by bojangleslover »

advael wrote: post #15

Seeing a lot of "Well but what if it works" here, and I'll weigh in as someone who does AI - including CV-related applications involving convolutional neural networks - professionally and has participated in academic research in that field as well: I would estimate that roughly 80% of all "AI-based inference" that's currently being sold commercially is snake oil. Whether it's ad-tech, malware detection, facial recogn…

Totally agreed on the snake oil. But you can't deny there are definitely strong signals. For example, NN's can detect with 91% accuracy the sexual orientation of males, with only five images.

Also, not saying 91% is good enough for any government or business to commit to.

https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Deep-Neural-Networks-C...

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#32

Post by mdp2021 »

arketyp wrote: post #9

If there were some truth to physiognomy, wouldn't these systems be the best way to defeat injustice?

Surely you can discuss the matter yourself, given your use of the expression 'best way' (which would have required much more extensive defence on your side) and the number of competing factors which come to mind, such as education, societal development (environment/example, cohesion, organization), mental health, economic structure, opportunities, sanctions, law enforcement... Is not there a discipline of criminology?

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#33

Post by quirkot »

bojangleslover wrote: post #31
advael wrote: post #15

Seeing a lot of "Well but what if it works" here, and I'll weigh in as someone who does AI - including CV-related applications involving convolutional neural networks - professionally and has participated in academic research in that field as well: I would estimate that roughly 80% of all "AI-based inference" that's currently being sold commercially is snake oil. Whether it's ad-tech, malware detection, facial recogn…

Totally agreed on the snake oil. But you can't deny there are definitely strong signals. For example, NN's can detect with 91% accuracy the sexual orientation of males, with only five images. Also, not saying 91% is good enough for any government or business to commit to. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Deep-Neural-Networks-C...

Base rate effect. Also, those NN's are less accurate than a sticky note that just says "straight"

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#34

Post by mdp2021 »

arketyp wrote: post #28
Werewolf255 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there were some truth to racism, wouldn't that system be the best way to defeat inequality?

That's a devious analogy. Racism is not the same as acknowledging genetic differences. If people with darker skin are more likely to suffer from D vitamin deficiency, wouldn't we want to be informed about it? Reversely, should pale people simply ignore being burned by the sun when visiting tropical places?

Yes, but go back to the topic, to carry on with the idea of "physiognomy to defeat injustice". Blood type C correlates with increased shoplifting: then what? You study the matter further (good)? Or you approach Roger Slackermeyer strong of a 90% confidence of something (well...)?

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#35

Post by arketyp »

mdp2021 wrote: post #32
arketyp wrote: post #9

If there were some truth to physiognomy, wouldn't these systems be the best way to defeat injustice?

Surely you can discuss the matter yourself, given your use of the expression 'best way' (which would have required much more extensive defence on your side) and the number of competing factors which come to mind, such as education, societal development (environment/example, cohesion, organization), mental health, economic structure, opportunities, sanctions, law enforcement... Is not there a discipline of criminology…

My question was rhetorically stylized. I meant the best way between two opposing alternatives, i.e., between suppressing and embracing these technologies as tools in any of those fields you mention.

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#36

Post by polm23 »

bojangleslover wrote: post #31
advael wrote: post #15

Seeing a lot of "Well but what if it works" here, and I'll weigh in as someone who does AI - including CV-related applications involving convolutional neural networks - professionally and has participated in academic research in that field as well: I would estimate that roughly 80% of all "AI-based inference" that's currently being sold commercially is snake oil. Whether it's ad-tech, malware detection, facial recogn…

Totally agreed on the snake oil. But you can't deny there are definitely strong signals. For example, NN's can detect with 91% accuracy the sexual orientation of males, with only five images. Also, not saying 91% is good enough for any government or business to commit to. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Deep-Neural-Networks-C...

Besides the base rate effect did you not see the article already posted in this thread with the many problems with that paper?

https://www.theregister.com/2019/03/05/ai_gaydar/

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#37

Post by st_goliath »

matthewmorgan wrote: post #30

If faces don't carry information, why are we so good at distinguishing them?

Telling Alice and Bob apart visually because of their individual facial features, and possibly using that to uniquely identify them, is one thing.

Being convinced you can deduce Bob's character traits e.g. determine that Bob must have criminal tendencies based on the shape of his nose, is something very different.

This paper is about the later. About people doing CS research becoming convinced the later is possible, because their statistics dousing rod has found a correlation in their data set. And the very bad consequences that can follow from this.

You might want to at least read the abstract of the paper.

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#38

Post by advael »

bojangleslover wrote: post #31
advael wrote: post #15

Seeing a lot of "Well but what if it works" here, and I'll weigh in as someone who does AI - including CV-related applications involving convolutional neural networks - professionally and has participated in academic research in that field as well: I would estimate that roughly 80% of all "AI-based inference" that's currently being sold commercially is snake oil. Whether it's ad-tech, malware detection, facial recogn…

Totally agreed on the snake oil. But you can't deny there are definitely strong signals. For example, NN's can detect with 91% accuracy the sexual orientation of males, with only five images. Also, not saying 91% is good enough for any government or business to commit to. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Deep-Neural-Networks-C...

Have you read the actual paper? That figure is at best inflated, and their methodology is riddled with confounds, including but not limited to the role of social networking profile pictures as dating signals, intentional signaling such as grooming and makeup, and factors like the the socio-economic status and locale of the people being classified, which can be more predictive of declared sexual orientation than anything resulting from physiological features.

Oh right, it's probably worthwhile to note that since there are considerable reasons in many parts of the world to hide one's sexual orientation, and this study's design only conditions on reported sexual orientation on social media, the results are intrinsically skewed just by being from a population of out gay people

Also, bear in mind that if we take Wikipedia's reported rate of homosexuality in the general human population, for which 9% would be... pretty generous (The "Demographics of sexual orientation" article lists several statistics and I can't find a world aggregate, but e.g. San Francisco is 15%), a null-classifier that always guesses "straight" would be just as accurate. If the population levels were lower, more accurate

Bottom line, that study isn't very convincing

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#39

Post by arketyp »

mdp2021 wrote: post #34
arketyp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a devious analogy. Racism is not the same as acknowledging genetic differences. If people with darker skin are more likely to suffer from D vitamin deficiency, wouldn't we want to be informed about it? Reversely, should pale people simply ignore being burned by the sun when visiting tropical places?

Yes, but go back to the topic, to carry on with the idea of "physiognomy to defeat injustice". Blood type C correlates with increased shoplifting: then what? You study the matter further (good)? Or you approach Roger Slackermeyer strong of a 90% confidence of something (well...)?

> Blood type C correlates with increased shoplifting: then what?

Then you take appropriate measures, or you don't. Compare it to regular diseases. If you have a history of cancer in your family, you would probably want to go on regular screenings. Or if your family has a history of suicide, perhaps you want to pay special attention when your kids are feeling depressed.

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#40

Post by bojangleslover »

advael wrote: post #38
bojangleslover wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Totally agreed on the snake oil. But you can't deny there are definitely strong signals. For example, NN's can detect with 91% accuracy the sexual orientation of males, with only five images. Also, not saying 91% is good enough for any government or business to commit to. https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/Deep-Neural-Networks-C...

Have you read the actual paper? That figure is at best inflated, and their methodology is riddled with confounds, including but not limited to the role of social networking profile pictures as dating signals, intentional signaling such as grooming and makeup, and factors like the the socio-economic status and locale of the people being classified, which can be more predictive of declared sexual orientation than anyth…

Have you read the paper?

However, among the 100 of 585 individuals with the highest probability of being gay according to the classifier, 47 were gay. In other words, the classifier provided for a nearly seven-fold improvement in precision over a random draw (47/7 = 6.71). The precision could be further increased by narrowing the targeted subsample. Among 30 males with the highest probability of being gay, 23 were gay, an eleven- fold improvement in precision over a random draw (23/2.1 = 11). Finally, among the top 10 individuals with the highest probability of being gay, 9 were indeed gay: a thirteen-fold improvement in precision over a random draw.

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