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Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

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Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#41

Post by api »

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…

The phrases "computer aided superstition" and "computer aided paradolia" come to mind.

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#43

Post by advael »

bojangleslover wrote: post #40
advael wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ga…

Yes, and this further demonstrates how ridiculous the reporting on this result was. Their sample population was tiny and skewed, and this paragraph is a great example of why you can make your results look better to lay readers by reducing N (which in statistical terms should reduce your level of confidence in the result you got because the likelihood of spurious accuracy from random factors increases) and choosing whatever metric sounds best when you do that (here, they do so by only talking about precision - IE avoiding false positives, with no mention of the false negatives).

But I do have to give you some credit for providing a case study for why scientific literacy is super hard, and doubly so in a context where researchers are strongly incentivized to try to make their results sound as convincingly meaningful as possible

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#44

Post by masswerk »

bojangleslover wrote: post #40
advael wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ga…

However, there's still a valid chance that the classifier relates more to any attributions provided in profile images than to facial features. (E.g., we're pretty good at inferring social status or role from medieval portraits based on such attributions without knowing any about phrenology or physiognomy.)

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#45

Post by mdp2021 »

arketyp wrote: post #35
mdp2021 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Ok then (now it's much clearer). Now, - «suppressing» - the article in some parts surely may sound emotionally censorial («should be anathema»), but, - «embracing» - is the real-world context one of getting elements for further study with all caveats and common sense in place, or one of hyped glamorous reliance? Is it for the criminologist or for an agent? If the HR uses an AI sceening to hire you (first example in the article), you will think you dodged a bullet not working there, but if it is the Country to make decisions relying on it (maybe "false positives are expendable when dealing with big numbers" - which also, per se, would be the opposite of justice), well, there's less than 200 around, and many of them will not just let you in just because you want to.

So, new elements to study: all very interesting. But: "Sir, I see you have the traits of those who smear themselves with bananas for pleasure" - there are a number of issues with it. You know, constructs like, e.g. from Armando Iannucci: «...the sort of racist brush that could only be wielded by a Scottish-Italian» (about himself, in Charm Offensive).

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#46

Post by mdp2021 »

arketyp wrote: post #39
mdp2021 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> If you have a history ... in your family, you would probably want

That's you personally. And the law enforcement? The HR? The neighbourhood?

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#47

Post by advael »

api wrote: post #41
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…

The phrases "computer aided superstition" and "computer aided paradolia" come to mind.

Nah, deep dream was computer-aided pareidolia. This is just regular old computer-aided prejudice

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#48

Post by roenxi »

plutonorm wrote: post #22
roenxi wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it would be the equivalent of a natural built-in evil bit and an extremely bizarre thing - for the same reason that the evil bit is unlikely to be used. Any system that claims to work on that sort of input is almost certainly picking up socio-economic status of different races, or something similar, with no causal predictive power.

You are saying that there is no genetic component to personality? That's dumb. Are you saying there is no genetic component to facial features? Also dumb. Are you saying that there is no crossover whatsoever between the genetics that govern facial features and personality? Also dumb. There will be crossover above 0, it would extraordinary if there were 0 crossover. So there is likely some small correlation between fa…

You've missed an angle - the causal link between genetics and personality is completely overwhelmed by the non-causal correlation between genetics and social status.

These models aren't going to pick up the correlation between facial structure and personality, they are going to pick up which families are high status and which are low, then provide the same pseudoscientific justifications for discriminating that people have been deploying since the dawn of pseudoscience.

Basically, these models are going to mislead people into thinking that a non-causal correlation is causal.

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#49

Post by api »

advael wrote: post #47
api wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The phrases "computer aided superstition" and "computer aided paradolia" come to mind.

Nah, deep dream was computer-aided pareidolia. This is just regular old computer-aided prejudice

Prejudice is superstition, paradolia, and statistical undue weight fallacies like "one black person mugged me once, therefore from a sample size of one I am concluding that blacks are criminals."

Re: Physiognomic Artificial Intelligence

#50

Post by arketyp »

mdp2021 wrote: post #46
arketyp wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

> If you have a history ... in your family, you would probably want That's you personally. And the law enforcement? The HR? The neighbourhood?

Same problem as with all other diseases and predispositions we know of today.
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