This psychologist’s “gaydar” rearch mak unfortable. That’s the pot. - Vox

Contents:

• 'I WAS SHOCKED WAS SO EASY': ​MEET THE PROFSOR WHO SAYS FACIAL REGNN ​​N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY
• ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'
• FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'
• THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.
• THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE
• STANFORD UNIVERSY'S AI N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY OR STRAIGHT OM A PHOTO
• ARTIFICIAL TELLIGENCE N INTIFY 'GAY FAC' OM A PICTURE, STUDY CLAIMS

'I WAS SHOCKED WAS SO EASY': ​MEET THE PROFSOR WHO SAYS FACIAL REGNN ​​N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY

Weeks after his trip to Mosw, Kosski published a ntroversial paper which he showed how face-analysg algorhms uld distguish between photographs of gay and straight people. ”In a paper published last year, Kosski and a Stanford puter scientist, Yilun Wang, reported that a mache-learng system was able to distguish between photos of gay and straight people wh a high gree of accuracy. Prented wh two pictur – one of a gay person, the other straight – the algorhm was traed to distguish the two 81% of s volvg imag of men and 74% of photographs of women.

’ Photograph: Jason Henry/The GuardianNeher did many other people, and there was an immediate backlash when the rearch – dubbed “AI gaydar” – was previewed the Enomist magaze. ) There was also anger that Kosski had nducted rearch on a technology that uld be ed to persecute gay people untri such as Iran and Sdi Arabia, where homosexualy is punishable by ath.

His fdgs are nsistent wh the prenatal hormone theory of sexual orientatn, he says, which argu that the levels of androgens foet are exposed to the womb help terme whether people are straight or gay. Image source, Stanford UniversyImage ptn, The study created pose fac judged most and least likely to belong to homosexualsA facial regnn experiment that claims to be able to distguish between gay and heterosexual people has sparked a row between s creators and two leadg LGBT rights Stanford Universy study claims s software regnis facial featur relatg to sexual orientatn that are not perceived by human work has been acced of beg "dangero" and "junk science" the scientists volved say the are "knee-jerk" reactns.

ROW OVER AI THAT 'INTIFI GAY FAC'

Details of the peer-reviewed project are due to be published the Journal of Personaly and Social jawsFor their study, the rearchers traed an algorhm g the photos of more than 14, 000 whe Amerins taken om a datg ed between one and five of each person's pictur and took people's sexualy as self-reported on the datg rearchers said the rultg software appeared to be able to distguish between gay and heterosexual men and women. In one tt, when the algorhm was prented wh two photos where one picture was fely of a gay man and the other heterosexual, was able to terme which was which 81% of the women, the figure was 71%. "But their software did not perform as well other suatns, cludg a tt which was given photos of 70 gay men and 930 heterosexual asked to pick 100 men "most likely to be gay" missed 23 of s summary of the study, the Enomist - which was first to report the rearch - poted to several "limatns" cludg a ncentratn on whe Amerins and the e of datg se pictur, which were "likely to be particularly revealg of sexual orientatn".

FACIAL HTS SHARPEN PEOPLE'S 'GAYDAR'

"This rearch isn't science or news, but 's a scriptn of bety standards on datg s that ignor huge segments of the LGBTQ (lbian, gay, bisexual, transgenr and queer/qutng) muny, cludg people of lour, transgenr people, olr dividuals, and other LGBTQ people who don't want to post photos on datg s, " said Jim Halloran, chief digal officer of Glaad, a media-monorg body. "The reckls fdgs uld serve as a weapon to harm both heterosexuals who are accurately outed, as well as gay and lbian people who are suatns where g out is dangero. "The 'subtle' differenc uld be a nsequence of gay and straight people choosg to portray themselv systematilly different ways, rather than differenc facial appearance self, " said Prof Benedict Jon, who ns the Face Rearch Lab at the Universy of was also important, he said, for the technil tails of the analysis algorhm to be published to see if they stood up to rmed cricism.

Whout beg aware of , most people n accurately intify gay men by face aloneAlthough I've always wanted this particular superhuman power, I've never been very good at tectg other men's sexual orientatn. In an ial experiment, rearchers Nicholas Rule and Nali Ambady om Tufts Universy pesed onle datg s and refully selected 45 straight male fac and 45 gay male fac. The 90 fac were then shown to 90 participants random orr, who were asked simply to judge the target's "probable sexual orientatn" (gay or straight) by prsg a button.

THIS PSYCHOLOGIST’S “GAYDAR” REARCH MAK UNFORTABLE. THAT’S THE POT.

"Th, " the thors wrote, "by g photos of gay and straight dividuals that they themselv did not post, we were able to remove the fluence of self-prentatn and much of the potential selectn bias that may be prent photos om personal advertisements.

And even wh the more strgent ntrols, the participants were able to intify the gay fac at levels greater than chance—aga even on those trials where the fac were flickered on the screen for a mere 50 lisends. For example, when shown only the eye regn ("whout brows and cropped to the outer nthi so that not even "crow's-feet" were visible"), perceivers were amazgly still able to accurately intify a man as beg gay.

THE FAMO AI GAYDAR STUDY WAS REPEATED – AND, NO, N'T TELL IF YOU'RE STRAIGHT OR NOT JT OM YOUR FACE

I was cur enough about Rule's fdgs to look up "gay face" the Urban Dictnary, a popular Web se that offers rmal, er-ntributed fns of everyday (often crass) saygs.

"A man, ually homosexual, wh a distctly effete facial stcture wh some very specific featur; a strong jawle [sic] that lacks promence, space between the ey that rell people wh down syndrome [sic], and a slopg, long forehead. Now, that one's rather silly and sensatnalized—even polilly spect—and there's certaly no scientific evince support of the claims about the "mongoloid" featur of homosexual men's fac.

STANFORD UNIVERSY'S AI N TELL IF YOU'RE GAY OR STRAIGHT OM A PHOTO

For example, the send experiment, participants uld still ferret out the gay face when shown the eye regn sans eyebrows and cropped to the outer nthi. It was only a few years ago that rearchers disvered that, unlike straight men, gay men tend to have hair whorl patterns that n a unterclockwise directn.

People n judge wh surprisg accuracy whether someone is gay or straight — even when they're lookg at a black-and-whe photograph, cropped of hair and intifyg marks, and prented upsi fdgs om a Universy of Washgton study suggt people e a batn of clu om dividual facial featur and om the way those featur f together to make snap judgments about sexual orientatn, said rearcher Joshua Tabak, a graduate stunt psychology. But even upsi down, people are good at procsg dividual facial and his -thor exploed this quirk of the bra by prentg photographs of 111 gay men, 122 straight men, 87 gay women and 93 straight women to 129 stunt volunteers.

ARTIFICIAL TELLIGENCE N INTIFY 'GAY FAC' OM A PICTURE, STUDY CLAIMS

"It's really tertg to speculate that there might be this ironic effect that bee we're more faiar wh the ncept of gay men [ the media], maybe we're more liberal wh labelg a man gay. That suggts both facial featur (which n be procsed upsi-down and right-si-up photos) and facial nfiguratn provi hts to orientatn, the rearchers report Wednday (May 16) the journal PLoS remas to be seen how or if people e "gaydar" real life, when they have more to go on than a glimpse of a photograph, Tabak said. He and his lleagu are now g bra imagg to monor bra activy as people look at pictur of gay and straight dividuals whout knowg their sexual orientatn.