You see, if a person is smiling then they're conservative but if they're frowning then they're a lib. Simple as.
Okay, actually no, it's not that simple. But the latest AI technology can now purportedly scan your face and, based on shape, decide if you're conservative or liberal.
A recent study published in the journal American Psychologist says an algorithm's ability to accurately guess one's political views is "on par with how well job interviews predict job success, or alcohol drives aggressiveness." Lead author Michal Kosinski told Fox News Digital that 591 participants filled out a political orientation questionnaire before the AI captured what he described as a numerical "fingerprint" of their faces and compared them to a database of their responses to predict their views.
Seriously, a computer can do this...
...And accurately discern who you're likely to vote for.
The authors of the study made sure that there were no features outside of the face scanned by AI. Everyone wore a black T-shirt, everyone had their hair pulled back as much as possible, piercings were removed, makeup removed, and the computer was still able to sort the folks by politics.
The authors wrote that their findings "underscore the urgency for scholars, the public, and policymakers to recognize and address the potential risks of facial recognition technology to personal privacy" and that an "analysis of facial features associated with political orientation revealed that conservatives tended to have larger lower faces."
"Perhaps most crucially, our findings suggest that widespread biometric surveillance technologies are more threatening than previously thought," the study warned. "Previous research showed that naturalistic facial images convey information about political orientation and other intimate traits. But it was unclear whether the predictions were enabled by self-presentation, stable facial features, or both. Our results, suggesting that stable facial features convey a substantial amount of the signal, imply that individuals have less control over their privacy."
Maybe it's just easier to tell the difference between a conservative and a lib just by looking at them.
Maybe anyone would be able to do this if they just thought about it a little bit.
The researchers were mostly worried that this tech will be abused through social media platforms like Facebook. If someone can see your profile picture, they could accurately predict your political leanings, and therefore your values, which would allow them to use that to advertise to you and invade your privacy.
(One wonders what "extremist" list of MAGA voters the FBI could compile as well!)
The authors concluded that "even crude estimates of people's character traits can significantly improve the efficiency of online mass persuasion campaigns" and that "scholars, the public, and policymakers should take notice and consider tightening policies regulating the recording and processing of facial images."
Maybe, just maybe, we've gotta stop posting photos of ourselves on the internet if we're interested in keeping our privacy.
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