Facial recognition can predict person’s political orientation with 72% accuracy

Post by tcmb » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 8:01 PM UTC

mywittyname wrote: post #170

utborin wrote: post #138

There's an avalanche of people commenting on this who didn't bother to check the article before raising their methodological objections, so let's get these out of the way here. - Yes, they controlled for objects appearing in the pictures that might indicate political affiliation. The images are tightly cropped around the face. See Methods. - Yes, this is significantly better than both a coin flip and a human classifi…

There's evidence of inheritability of political orientation, since it is tied to personality traits. Given that, it makes sense that it is possible to predict political orientation through looks alone. After all, looks are also inherited traits. The article gets into this a little bit. They are able to predict traits like intelligence and honesty by looks alone.

Post by Tarsul » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 8:03 PM UTC

hntrader wrote: post #247

SamBam wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Obviously it's looking at something . I feel like everyone is jumping to assuming the authors are implying it's somehow in the person's facial structure, but it doesn't say that. If it's looking at the quality of the photo, or the trim of the beard, that's still interesting. Among other things, it means that you know analyses like this might start cropping up everywhere you submit your photo (job application cover le…

Humans might try, but the same study says they're not good at it with only 55 percent accuracy.

Post by hntrader » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

xxpor wrote: post #289

hntrader wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"controlling for ... ethnicity" There's significant signal buried in here that is likely not controlled for, depending on how granular their controls are. White-German and White-Italian are much more (10-13 percent) likely to be conservative leaning than White-Irish or White-British. Hispanic-Cuban are more likely to be conservative leaning than Hispanic-Mexican.

In the US or generally?

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 8:15 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #281

derekam wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. There was some fuss a while back about a similar classifier for sexuality. It turned out to be guessing mostly based on head tilt, personal hygiene and whether the person was wearing glasses. The physiognomy component was ~nonexistent even though it was publicized as though it weren’t. People intentionally if at times subconsciously present themselves in a way that signals information to kindred spirits. You…

I think that conclusion is at least as interesting as physiognomy. It's remarkable that a computer could be more sensitive to it than people.

Post by Nasrudith » Fri, Mar 05, 2021, 8:21 PM UTC

dj_mc_merlin wrote: post #252

cmehdy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What makes you think your hiring manager isn't already doing that based on their interaction with you and your looks? Even simply subconsciously?

The point is this system would perform better than them. Maybe we will need to learn how to lie to robots?