Is Your Face Conservative or Liberal?
Do you have a conservative face or a liberal face? Take a look in the mirror and answer yourself as soon as possible because it is quite possible that your ideology — at least what some robot thinks about it — will become public or end up in someone else’s hands sooner rather than later.
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Yes, the research is fascinating. And horrifying. Now Dr. Michal Kosinski has concluded that AI can identify whether a person is right- or left-leaning just by examining his or her face. He has concluded his investigation with 591 participants (plus over 3,000 images of politicians), and his AI has managed to correctly identify each person’s political leanings with 70 percent accuracy. That’s more than you can achieve by having a beer with a stranger without openly asking whom he votes for.
The doctor warns that AI can be dangerous in the hands of idiots. But the world is full of idiots, and it is normal that it should end up in their hands; I say this with 70 percent accuracy without the need for AI. The truth is that this study confirms that our privacy is slowly going to hell.
The technological world that is growing around us generates a certain uneasiness within me. It’s nothing new. It happens to everyone when our hair starts to fall out and we start going gray. However, I feel particularly ill at ease with a planet dominated by artificial intelligence. Firstly, because, when it speaks, it is always as arrogant as the Google Maps voice giving you directions, always unable to acknowledge that it may not know exactly how the hell to get to you to your destination. And, secondly, because, if the AI threat to our privacy continues, sooner rather than later we will live in a technological hell in which a robot will dictate to us our tastes, our flings, where to live, and our perfect sleep schedule.
Yes, I know that some of it is already happening. We buy books on Amazon because an AI suggests them to us based on our searches and preferences. Grocery stores suggest purchases based on our previous spending. And dating apps often store the kinds of things you like about a woman to suggest similar girls you might like; except, in my case, because I doubt Maria Sharapova is on Tinder.
On the other hand, I’m terrified of politicians setting out to control something that is running amok. They almost ruined everything when they tried to put a fence around the internet, and now it won’t take too long for them to do the same with the different kinds of AI. We have already seen that legislating through prohibition — in technology — is not very effective.
As I was saying, the fact that anyone with an app can decipher our political ideology means that anyone will also be able to decipher many other things, from our place of origin to — in the near future — our personal tastes or state of mind. The day will come when you will be sitting in a job interview, and they’ll point this app at your face to see if you are lying, or if you react well to stressful or tense situations.
Without wanting to be too apocalyptic, I hope I never have to live in such a world. I hope there is some way to escape this immense science fiction film set, where everything is recorded and examined with AI, and conclusions are drawn, and huge packets of extremely private data are traded. Because it is possible that such a planet might be incredibly advanced in science and technology, but it would be absolutely dehumanizing. It would be a prison, a production line churning out dissatisfaction for mankind.
I guess it’s an age thing. But I still like my world today — one where artificial intelligence is still far less dangerous than natural stupidity.
Translated by Joel Dalmau.
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