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

nature.com

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

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This system is picking up on things we don't notice. In the case of men at least some studies have found a correlation between testosterone level and political orientation, something that matches well with my anecdotal observations. It is not outlandish to think this manifests in visual cues in even something as limited as a pic. https://www.mdcthereporter.com/low-testosterone-left/

I have no idea why this comment got downvoted. This is the most scientific explanation possible. In males, more testosterone induces more risk taking, while low testosterone is linked to risk avoidance. Left-wing policies (“nanny state”) cater to people who avoid risks; people who are risk takers prefer right wing policies. Testosterone also affects muscle growth and facial characteristics.

Economic leftism might be associated with less risk-taking, but why do startup founders - people who often take huge risks - tend to skew socially left? It could probably be partly explained by sociological reasons (might be harder to get support/funding if you're perceived as more socially conservative than average), but even accounting for that, I suspect it's mostly correlated with sincere political belief.

That's one problem with studies like this, as the authors point out. Is Paul Graham liberal or conservative in this binary? I think most conservatives in the US would say liberal, but many liberals, and perhaps even most liberals in his general sphere, might say he's conservative due to "complaining about SJWs and the intolerance of the left on Twitter almost daily, and routinely and proactively arguing in favor of lowering taxes for corporations and very wealthy people".

(The obvious answer is he's neither [http://www.paulgraham.com/mod.html] and it's too hard to fit many people into a one-word binary.)

One could also claim conservatives are by definition averse to change and so risk-averse. They (in this contrived weakman argument) are more likely to want to avoid risks from immigration, the demographics of their community shifting, their industry changing and the possibility of having to find a new kind of job, newly developed vaccines, theological consequences of permitting sinful behavior, etc.

These are all intellectually lazy arguments, but the point is I don't think one can reliably sum up "a conservative" or "a liberal" - whatever that is - as being more or less risk-taking.

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

#383
post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's really important. It's the only important comparison - I don't believe 72% means anything on its own. The study either needs to try the exact same methodology on humans, or to find a metastudy that consistently shows humans perform well below that on these tests. To be fair to the authors, the information isn't hidden. It's prominent in the introduction, just not in the abstract.

Why does this need to be better than humans to be interesting? It's still extremely interesting to me that a program can determine with over 70% accuracy a person's political orientation from a cropped photo, without taking age sex or race into consideration. Among other things, it means it can do that to 10 million photos, which you'd have to pay a lot of humans to do if you wanted it done otherwise.

There are a lot of other cues. Oversimplifying, here in Argentina you can have a few clues from facial hair in men:

Beard like Che Guevara -> Left

Moustache like Saddam Hussein -> Right

There are exemptions, and most people shave all facial hair, so it's more complicated, but there are many easy clues in the face. Are the easy clues enough to explain a ~70% or they did something really interesting?

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

#384
post #69

It's an easy trick when there's only two options: red and blue. - The rest of the word.

Then going long or short on a security is easy?

Sure, you could probably train an AI to get 72% accuracy on that as well. It would be just as meaningless.

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

#385

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ebay is banning accounts that sell Dr. Seuss books. Fact. The outrage over racial overtones came from a left aligned organization. Fact. It was carried on and cheered on by left leaning people. Fact. People on the right don’t use words like “problematic” and “racialized undertones” That’s on you guys. This is from The horses mouth: “ Six popular Dr. Seuss books — including And to Think That I Saw It on Mulberry Stree…

I thought that adding factual and documentary context in a polite way might elevate the conversation, but it looks like you prefer being rude and angry.

I didn't mean to be rude, I enjoy the discourse. Thanks for engaging.

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

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why this comment got downvoted. This is the most scientific explanation possible. In males, more testosterone induces more risk taking, while low testosterone is linked to risk avoidance. Left-wing policies (“nanny state”) cater to people who avoid risks; people who are risk takers prefer right wing policies. Testosterone also affects muscle growth and facial characteristics.

Economic leftism might be associated with less risk-taking, but why do startup founders - people who often take huge risks - tend to skew socially left? It could probably be partly explained by sociological reasons (might be harder to get support/funding if you're perceived as more socially conservative than average), but even accounting for that, I suspect it's mostly correlated with sincere political belief. That's…

Startup founders tend to skew socially left the same way supermodels tend to say being attractive is not that important

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

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have no idea why this comment got downvoted. This is the most scientific explanation possible. In males, more testosterone induces more risk taking, while low testosterone is linked to risk avoidance. Left-wing policies (“nanny state”) cater to people who avoid risks; people who are risk takers prefer right wing policies. Testosterone also affects muscle growth and facial characteristics.

Economic leftism might be associated with less risk-taking, but why do startup founders - people who often take huge risks - tend to skew socially left? It could probably be partly explained by sociological reasons (might be harder to get support/funding if you're perceived as more socially conservative than average), but even accounting for that, I suspect it's mostly correlated with sincere political belief. That's…

>why do startup founders - people who often take huge risks - tend to skew socially left?

People high in the big-five personality trait of openness perform well in startups (and perform relatively poorly in large organizations with an established business model) and high openness people tend to leftist political opinions.

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

#388
post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The words conservative and liberal have wildly other meanings outside of the US. Even in the US they are not well agreed upon (especially the definitions, people seem to know which one to pick though when they have to).

Some dumbed down US conservative principles. A conservative may only care about some of these. Financial: balanced budget types. Government: Common defense, otherwise minimal. Responsibility: Your job to feed and cloth yourself. Morals: don’t kill babies. Religious: Act like God watches you and you will be judged.

> Responsibility: your job to feed and cloth yourself

Unless you are a farmer

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

#389
post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some dumbed down US conservative principles. A conservative may only care about some of these. Financial: balanced budget types. Government: Common defense, otherwise minimal. Responsibility: Your job to feed and cloth yourself. Morals: don’t kill babies. Religious: Act like God watches you and you will be judged.

> Responsibility: your job to feed and cloth yourself Unless you are a farmer

Every single one of those "principles" listed is rhetorical, not factually based on policy.

I don't know how the GOP still manages to run on a platform of "balanced budgets" when they have consistently running higher deficits than the Democrats for nearly that past 100 years.

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

#390

> "Accuracy remained high (69%) even when controlling for age, gender, and ethnicity." So if I just assign the majority label to all of the population of a given demographics group, I would get the same result right? i.e., predicting "left" for all minorities under 30. You would also get ~70% accuracy.

What do you think 'controlling for age [,etc]' means?

Please state what you want to say. No need to be passive aggressive.
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