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> A mere photo can be used [to] guess political preferences fairly well Really? Could you provide me with a link? It seems counter-intuitive. I look pretty muc

by etripe 5y ago

> A mere photo can be used [to] guess political preferences fairly well Really? Could you provide me with a link? It seems counter-intuitive. I look pretty much like my barber, but he's right-wing tradcon and I'm oldskool left-wing.

fighterpilot 5y ago
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79310-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79310-1
- etripe 5y ago
  Thanks, that's very interesting. The other linked studies are, too.
mattkrause 5y ago
Nope, but your example nails it. It’s fairly straightforward to guess someone’s age, gender, race and maybe some cultural markers from a photograph. Those demographic factors are correlated with people’s political views: old white men tend to be Republican, folks with rainbow hair tend to skew liberal, etc. On a group level, this seems to let your predict political views, but there’s no mechanism that lets it work for an individual.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  No, check out the study I linked. They controlled for race, gender, etc. And human guessing was just 55 percent accurate versus 72 percent for the ML model.
  - mattkrause 5y ago
    Sure, but look at what cues their system uses: "The highest predictive power was afforded by head orientation (58%), followed by emotional expression (57%). Liberals tended to face the camera more directly, were more likely to express surprise, and less likely to express disgust. " The system isn't telling you anything about the person themselves; it's picking up on artifacts about how different subcultures present themselves in a public profile.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      It's your speculation that the underlying reason these features work is because individuals are adopting the behavioral norms of a subculture. This may or may not be the case. Also, some dimensions of personality are correlated with political belief, so even if these features weren't useful beyond predicting political belief (which itself is an unsubstantiated/speculative claim), there should still be some transitive predictive utility there.

by etripe 5y ago

fighterpilot 5y ago

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79310-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79310-1

etripe 5y ago
Thanks, that's very interesting. The other linked studies are, too.

mattkrause 5y ago

Nope, but your example nails it. It’s fairly straightforward to guess someone’s age, gender, race and maybe some cultural markers from a photograph. Those demographic factors are correlated with people’s political views: old white men tend to be Republican, folks with rainbow hair tend to skew liberal, etc. On a group level, this seems to let your predict political views, but there’s no mechanism that lets it work for an individual.

fighterpilot 5y ago
No, check out the study I linked. They controlled for race, gender, etc. And human guessing was just 55 percent accurate versus 72 percent for the ML model.
- mattkrause 5y ago
  Sure, but look at what cues their system uses: "The highest predictive power was afforded by head orientation (58%), followed by emotional expression (57%). Liberals tended to face the camera more directly, were more likely to express surprise, and less likely to express disgust. " The system isn't telling you anything about the person themselves; it's picking up on artifacts about how different subcultures present themselves in a public profile.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    It's your speculation that the underlying reason these features work is because individuals are adopting the behavioral norms of a subculture. This may or may not be the case. Also, some dimensions of personality are correlated with political belief, so even if these features weren't useful beyond predicting political belief (which itself is an unsubstantiated/speculative claim), there should still be some transitive predictive utility there.