8 ms·

This is a fascinating article. It's amazing what kind of data you can get from something as simple as a photograph. I don't really understand the outrage, howe

This is a fascinating article. It's amazing what kind of data you can get from something as simple as a photograph. I don't really understand the outrage, however. Some in the article claim that it's "racism" and hurts Dr. Kosinski's career, but the fact that he made a program that predicts who is gay and who is straight with odds much better than a coin flip is crazy! If they find out what the differences are between heterosexual and homosexual pictures, they may discover something that was never noticed before, whether it's a physiological trait or a difference in the photo taken due to behavioral differences. We really are living in the future. edit: To those downvoting me, could you please explain why? I don't think I said anything particularly controversial.

tyingq 9y ago
Racism is an odd choice of words, since ML would probably determine race at a higher level of accuracy than this experiment.
- krallja 9y ago
  The word "racism" comes directly from the Clare Garvie quote in the article: “At its very worst, this is racism by algorithm.” She should have used "bigotry" or "discrimination" instead.
- QAPereo 9y ago
  Would it? Race is so arbitrary and nonsensical that it’s tough to rationally predict. You could train it to determine things like skin color and other gross morphological features, but only the ones the trainer chooses to represent given races.
xupybd 9y ago
I suspect you're getting down voted because people see a reason to be outraged at this and you've said you don't understand the outrage. I'd like to ask someone to articulate the reasons for this outrage. I don't really understand, wasn't this created to show the dangers of facial recognition systems, didn't they have to pick something edgy to get that point across?
- jolux 9y ago
  Firstly, the researchers seem to have a cracker jack box understanding of the fields they're claiming to upend, what with claiming PHT is widely accepted. Secondly, it's not clear to me that they controlled for enough variables and only doing it on white people is strange. It could really be that gay people use better photos, who knows. They're claiming to be able to detect gay people but it seems like the system has to be coaxed very carefully into doing that and seems very limited. They built a purposefully inflammatory tech demo that seems to do more to betray their distance from the topic they're studying than it does bolster their reputation. At least from my perspective.
  - Bromskloss 9y ago
    > Secondly, it's not clear to me that they controlled for enough variables and only doing it on white people is strange. It could really be that gay people use better photos, who knows. Are these two sentences meant to be related to each other, or am I misreading your comment?
    - jolux 9y ago
      No that's a bit confusing. They were meant to be totally unrelated.
  - xupybd 9y ago
    So if I understand correctly the problem is not in what they attempted to do, it's that they didn't do it properly. Because they did this incorrectly the results they claim are not conclusive and given the inflammatory nature of the study they should be more careful with their claims?
    - jolux 9y ago
      Basically yes. Also if the point was to show that "AI" or whatever can be used for nefarious ends I think there are better ways of doing it. I have a feeling they were looking for better results than they got.
  - 9y ago
threatofrain 9y ago
I think most posts receive very few votes in any direction. You may be merely looking at a few downvoters, which I feel is a different population than HN at large, since many people can’t even downvote.
anigbrowl 9y ago
I haven't downvoted you, but I'm a bit troubled by your unbridled enthusiasm for how amazing previously futuristic technology is without any consideration of the ways in which it can be abused - as historically such knowledge about others has been abused. I invite you to consider the experience of people whose appearance is distinctive enough that complete strangers feel emboldened to just casually attack them in the street without any prior provocation. Now imagine the ramifications of having an app that can reliably tag people as gay or suchlike. How do you think that's likely to get used in the real world?
- fuck_google 9y ago
  Science is about gaining knowledge. Society has the responsibility to ensure that people are treated equally. Enforcing social equality requires recognizing/acknowledging how that knowledge can be misused. Blocking science is not the answer, enforcing equal treatment under the law is.

tyingq 9y ago

Racism is an odd choice of words, since ML would probably determine race at a higher level of accuracy than this experiment.

krallja 9y ago
The word "racism" comes directly from the Clare Garvie quote in the article: “At its very worst, this is racism by algorithm.” She should have used "bigotry" or "discrimination" instead.
QAPereo 9y ago
Would it? Race is so arbitrary and nonsensical that it’s tough to rationally predict. You could train it to determine things like skin color and other gross morphological features, but only the ones the trainer chooses to represent given races.

xupybd 9y ago

I suspect you're getting down voted because people see a reason to be outraged at this and you've said you don't understand the outrage. I'd like to ask someone to articulate the reasons for this outrage. I don't really understand, wasn't this created to show the dangers of facial recognition systems, didn't they have to pick something edgy to get that point across?

jolux 9y ago
Firstly, the researchers seem to have a cracker jack box understanding of the fields they're claiming to upend, what with claiming PHT is widely accepted. Secondly, it's not clear to me that they controlled for enough variables and only doing it on white people is strange. It could really be that gay people use better photos, who knows. They're claiming to be able to detect gay people but it seems like the system has to be coaxed very carefully into doing that and seems very limited. They built a purposefully inflammatory tech demo that seems to do more to betray their distance from the topic they're studying than it does bolster their reputation. At least from my perspective.
- Bromskloss 9y ago
  > Secondly, it's not clear to me that they controlled for enough variables and only doing it on white people is strange. It could really be that gay people use better photos, who knows. Are these two sentences meant to be related to each other, or am I misreading your comment?
  - jolux 9y ago
    No that's a bit confusing. They were meant to be totally unrelated.
- xupybd 9y ago
  So if I understand correctly the problem is not in what they attempted to do, it's that they didn't do it properly. Because they did this incorrectly the results they claim are not conclusive and given the inflammatory nature of the study they should be more careful with their claims?
  - jolux 9y ago
    Basically yes. Also if the point was to show that "AI" or whatever can be used for nefarious ends I think there are better ways of doing it. I have a feeling they were looking for better results than they got.
- 9y ago

threatofrain 9y ago

I think most posts receive very few votes in any direction. You may be merely looking at a few downvoters, which I feel is a different population than HN at large, since many people can’t even downvote.

anigbrowl 9y ago

I haven't downvoted you, but I'm a bit troubled by your unbridled enthusiasm for how amazing previously futuristic technology is without any consideration of the ways in which it can be abused - as historically such knowledge about others has been abused. I invite you to consider the experience of people whose appearance is distinctive enough that complete strangers feel emboldened to just casually attack them in the street without any prior provocation. Now imagine the ramifications of having an app that can reliably tag people as gay or suchlike. How do you think that's likely to get used in the real world?

fuck_google 9y ago
Science is about gaining knowledge. Society has the responsibility to ensure that people are treated equally. Enforcing social equality requires recognizing/acknowledging how that knowledge can be misused. Blocking science is not the answer, enforcing equal treatment under the law is.