Weird Photometric Science

The Guardian (U.K.) reports research done at Stanford and published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It found that an artificial intelligence program could identify individuals' sexual orientation - gay or straight - from a photograph.

A computer algorithm could correctly distinguish between gay and straight men 81% of the time, and 74% for women – has raised questions about the biological origins of sexual orientation, the ethics of facial-detection technology and the potential for this kind of software to violate people’s privacy or be abused for anti-LGBT purposes.

Human judges performed much worse than the algorithm, accurately identifying orientation only 61% of the time for men and 54% for women. When the software reviewed five images per person, it was even more successful – 91% of the time with men and 83% with women.

The researchers studied 35,000 images posted on a U.S. dating site, certainly a decent sized sample. Hat tip to Drudge Report for the link.