5 ms·

What disturbs me is the potential for a government, like in Iran or Russia, to use this technology to automatically screen and label people, as a precursor to m

by taneem 9y ago

What disturbs me is the potential for a government, like in Iran or Russia, to use this technology to automatically screen and label people, as a precursor to mass-scale systematic repression. I get that this study is problematic, but there is no reason to automatically assume it's not possible. What evidence do we have that there is no correlation between ML consumable physical characteristics and our sexuality?

xienze 9y ago
> What evidence do we have that there is no correlation between ML consumable physical characteristics and our sexuality? Because then we'd have to admit that there's some real science behind physiognomy. From there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away to realizing that race isn't just a social construct. This sort of thing leads down a road that most on the left don't want to go down.
- ajross 9y ago
  You're strawmanning. No one serious claims that there is no genetically identifiable basis for grouping people of similar geographical backgrounds. Clearly there is. Go spit in a tube and send it to 23andme, they'll tell you their guess for a mix of your ancestry. When people say things like "race is a social construct", they mean the fact that e.g. Americans will consistently and reliably identify people with (for an example) 60% european ancestry as "black" based on things like hair nap, skin tone, clothing, language use, and behavior. Yes, these studies have been done. So if you are concerned about, say, the treatment of "black" americans by, say, the police, the field of genetics has absolutely nothing to offer to help you. Many of those people are genetically "white", as it were.
  - lsd5you 9y ago
    I'd argue you are anti-strawmanning. As with all these debates, there is a spectrum of opinions, but plenty of high profile (if not entirely serious) people do have implicit (and even explicit) beliefs closer to the strawman than what you have outlined. Or they may agree with what you say as far as it goes but then reject any implications or further analysis based on those and similar facts.
    - mathgeek 9y ago
      Never heard the term "anti-strawmanning" used before. Care to elaborate on the definition? Google didn't have much to say on it.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
  - PeachPlum 9y ago
    > No one serious claims that there is no genetically identifiable basis for grouping people of similar geographical backgrounds. EU Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32000L0043 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:320... The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races. The use of the term "racial origin" in this Directive does not imply an acceptance of such theories.
    - ajross 9y ago
      That's mostly an argument about semantics. I avoided it by using the more precise notion of "grouping people by geographic origin". And even that's wrong, because all you can really group are a bunch of gene variants. Real people intermarry. The law you cite argues against defining "race" as an actual group of real people (which is wrong, for all sorts of reasons that I assume you don't want to argue here) and not just a statistical model of gene variants (which has support and is broadly uncontroversial even among commies like me).
      - PeachPlum 9y ago
        I posted it because you said "no-one seriously claims" and the EU is doing just that. They don't even try and justify it in the document (there may be supporting documents, they aren't referenced so I don't know). I think perhaps they don't want to say "All these people are X, all these Y". They even have to say "just because we say there are no races, doesn't mean there is no such things as racism". It would deny science to say anything but "Phenotype and some behaviours are genetically inherited, and breeders choose based on those, therefore people geographically separated are different."
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
- nkrisc 9y ago
  It's a social construct because those differences only remain because those populations still tend to only (for the most part) breed within their own group. If all "races" indiscriminately bred across racial lines those "races" would vanish. Of course there's an identifiable genetic difference in populations that tend to not interbreed. The question is whether it matters worth a damn, and it generally does not.
- geofft 9y ago
  > race isn't just a social construct Since a lot of people on the right seem to misunderstand this: the use of the phrase "social construct" is not a synonym "is entirely imaginary." A good example is fiat currency. The US dollar is a social construct. It's an abstraction that exists because of another abstraction (the US government) that says it exists, and society's willingness to accept the US government saying that the US dollar exists. If we all drop dead from a pandemic tomorrow, the US dollar will cease to exist. If aliens show up on our abandoned world and start looking for US dollars, they won't find any. They'll find pieces of paper, some of which used to represent a small fraction of all the US dollars that used to exist; they'll also find plenty of pieces of paper that didn't represent valid US dollars at the time of the pandemic, that were counterfeit dollars, etc. But none of this means that the US dollar doesn't exist today, or that there aren't reasons why society does accept the US government saying "This piece of paper has meaning, this similar-looking piece of paper doesn't". Race is a social construct based in actual biological reality, because actual biological reality is correlated with phenotypes and therefore with how society perceives you, and with origin and therefore with what social history you have.
balls187 9y ago
Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios? "Bad actors" using AI to influence debate, or writing "fake news" then promoting it with social media ads, etc?
- bsder 9y ago
  > Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios? Yes, and it is actually the bigger problem. Facial recognition and license plate scanners are already producing a "papers, please" situation. The gay community, however, is more activist and more likely to fight back. Which is why this is getting such traction.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Moln 9y ago
Geez! You Americans need to travel out of your caves once in a while to recalibrate this moral superiority complex. WTF?!? Have you actually met an Iranian or Russian?
Raphmedia 9y ago
The study addresses this: "Additionally, given that companies and governments are increasingly usingcomputer vision algorithms to detect people’s intimate traits, our findings expose a threat to the privacy and safety of gay men and women." (page 2)

by taneem 9y ago

xienze 9y ago

> What evidence do we have that there is no correlation between ML consumable physical characteristics and our sexuality? Because then we'd have to admit that there's some real science behind physiognomy. From there it's just a hop, skip, and a jump away to realizing that race isn't just a social construct. This sort of thing leads down a road that most on the left don't want to go down.

ajross 9y ago
You're strawmanning. No one serious claims that there is no genetically identifiable basis for grouping people of similar geographical backgrounds. Clearly there is. Go spit in a tube and send it to 23andme, they'll tell you their guess for a mix of your ancestry. When people say things like "race is a social construct", they mean the fact that e.g. Americans will consistently and reliably identify people with (for an example) 60% european ancestry as "black" based on things like hair nap, skin tone, clothing, language use, and behavior. Yes, these studies have been done. So if you are concerned about, say, the treatment of "black" americans by, say, the police, the field of genetics has absolutely nothing to offer to help you. Many of those people are genetically "white", as it were.
- lsd5you 9y ago
  I'd argue you are anti-strawmanning. As with all these debates, there is a spectrum of opinions, but plenty of high profile (if not entirely serious) people do have implicit (and even explicit) beliefs closer to the strawman than what you have outlined. Or they may agree with what you say as far as it goes but then reject any implications or further analysis based on those and similar facts.
  - mathgeek 9y ago
    Never heard the term "anti-strawmanning" used before. Care to elaborate on the definition? Google didn't have much to say on it.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
- PeachPlum 9y ago
  > No one serious claims that there is no genetically identifiable basis for grouping people of similar geographical backgrounds. EU Council Directive 2000/43/EC of 29 June 2000 implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons irrespective of racial or ethnic origin http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32000L0043 http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:320... The European Union rejects theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races. The use of the term "racial origin" in this Directive does not imply an acceptance of such theories.
  - ajross 9y ago
    That's mostly an argument about semantics. I avoided it by using the more precise notion of "grouping people by geographic origin". And even that's wrong, because all you can really group are a bunch of gene variants. Real people intermarry. The law you cite argues against defining "race" as an actual group of real people (which is wrong, for all sorts of reasons that I assume you don't want to argue here) and not just a statistical model of gene variants (which has support and is broadly uncontroversial even among commies like me).
    - PeachPlum 9y ago
      I posted it because you said "no-one seriously claims" and the EU is doing just that. They don't even try and justify it in the document (there may be supporting documents, they aren't referenced so I don't know). I think perhaps they don't want to say "All these people are X, all these Y". They even have to say "just because we say there are no races, doesn't mean there is no such things as racism". It would deny science to say anything but "Phenotype and some behaviours are genetically inherited, and breeders choose based on those, therefore people geographically separated are different."
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
nkrisc 9y ago
It's a social construct because those differences only remain because those populations still tend to only (for the most part) breed within their own group. If all "races" indiscriminately bred across racial lines those "races" would vanish. Of course there's an identifiable genetic difference in populations that tend to not interbreed. The question is whether it matters worth a damn, and it generally does not.
geofft 9y ago
> race isn't just a social construct Since a lot of people on the right seem to misunderstand this: the use of the phrase "social construct" is not a synonym "is entirely imaginary." A good example is fiat currency. The US dollar is a social construct. It's an abstraction that exists because of another abstraction (the US government) that says it exists, and society's willingness to accept the US government saying that the US dollar exists. If we all drop dead from a pandemic tomorrow, the US dollar will cease to exist. If aliens show up on our abandoned world and start looking for US dollars, they won't find any. They'll find pieces of paper, some of which used to represent a small fraction of all the US dollars that used to exist; they'll also find plenty of pieces of paper that didn't represent valid US dollars at the time of the pandemic, that were counterfeit dollars, etc. But none of this means that the US dollar doesn't exist today, or that there aren't reasons why society does accept the US government saying "This piece of paper has meaning, this similar-looking piece of paper doesn't". Race is a social construct based in actual biological reality, because actual biological reality is correlated with phenotypes and therefore with how society perceives you, and with origin and therefore with what social history you have.

balls187 9y ago

Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios? "Bad actors" using AI to influence debate, or writing "fake news" then promoting it with social media ads, etc?

bsder 9y ago
> Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios? Yes, and it is actually the bigger problem. Facial recognition and license plate scanners are already producing a "papers, please" situation. The gay community, however, is more activist and more likely to fight back. Which is why this is getting such traction.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Moln 9y ago

Geez! You Americans need to travel out of your caves once in a while to recalibrate this moral superiority complex. WTF?!? Have you actually met an Iranian or Russian?

Raphmedia 9y ago

The study addresses this: "Additionally, given that companies and governments are increasingly usingcomputer vision algorithms to detect people’s intimate traits, our findings expose a threat to the privacy and safety of gay men and women." (page 2)