this post was submitted on 17 Feb 2025
124 points (93.7% liked)

Technology

63038 readers
5077 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
all 25 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] Bluefruit 76 points 4 days ago

Just reading the title, sounded like a great way to automate racism.

And then I read:

This is just AI Phrenology, a continuation of the "scientific racism" movement that was invented to provide a justification for colonialism, slavery, genocide and eugenics

So uh yea, doesn't seem like a great idea.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago

Shitty title. Business school professors claim they trained an AI to judge workers' personalities based on their faces.

The article talks about why that is such a stupid and terrible proposal.

[–] [email protected] 62 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Ahh, phrenology is apparently scientific if you do it with AI?

I fucking hate this timeline

[–] rottingleaf 2 points 3 days ago

It was "scientific" when they'd "confirm" it with stats.

What they call AI today is a family of obscure statistical instruments pretending to carry truth in that trait alone.

No, other than having stats you should also know and be capable of proving how those stats apply to the task at hand.

And they use the all-powerful electronic computation machine as a piece of technomagic to give it credibility.

Have you read Klemperer's book on Third Reich's language? I recommend it highly. Nazis used a lot of names for their policies, the subtle semantics of which are usually lost when translating from German. They used terms from radio and from automobile industry, for example.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago

I don't know which machine learning textbook it was, but in the first few pages of it, the author warns about the stupidity and dangers of this exact same thing 🤷‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Those who produce MBAs at it again.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I used to joke about, but there really is MBA-> fascism pipeline going on

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

When your education revolves around dehumanizing people and turning them into abstract numbers, it's not that far of a leap, unfortunately.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago

We are one step closer to building the AI that can determine which one is cuter: a specific photo of a kitten or one of a puppy. Just imagine what you could do with such technology!

[–] dirthawker0 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Yeah what could possibly go wrong?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago

Parasites always trying to justify their own existence

[–] pdxfed 12 points 4 days ago

Great article, you should x-post to [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago

They've been doing this with "natural intelligence" for ages.

[–] Duamerthrax 1 points 3 days ago
[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (4 children)

Makes sense. How physiognomy was used in the 19. century was bullshit (phrenology with skull measuring and whatnot) but the face is a display of your genetical base, your hormonal exposure while growing up and of your health currently. Btw, that's why the face is important in dating.
And you do use it the same way in social context, although subsconsciously.

[–] CheeseNoodle 3 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Its also affected by which direction the sun hits your house from, your commute to work (if applicable) and what kind of diet you had when growing up.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Look, i'm an Asperger and use the same mechanism regularly, to guess how the person would react. It's not obscure and not bullshit. People just don't like that they are more transparent than they think.

[–] rottingleaf 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

but the face is a display of your genetical base, your hormonal exposure the last few years and of your health currently. Btw, that’s why the face is important in dating.

Everything is a display of everything else affecting it.

You are in some sense correct.

But using statistical instruments requires deep understanding of how they work. The article hints at that too.

And you do use it the same way in social context, although subsconsciously.

My experience is very different. When I see faces on photos, I get a completely different impression than seeing their owners personally and talking to them. Including romantic context.

[–] balder1991 3 points 2 days ago

Also what’s attractive to you might not be for me.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 days ago

Sure, you don't see traumata etc on the face. It's just a base estimate and some people are better in it than others.

[–] SpruceBringsteen 2 points 3 days ago

This just one scary side of AI.

The idea of corporate level integration of this stuff is straight out of Black Mirror.

We're right around the corner from the corpo AI keeping tabs on your pupil dilation as you read your emails. If we aren't there already.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Makes sense.

Sure if you know nothing about biology, sociology, "AI", etc.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

I do. Seems like you don't know enough.

Btw, https://lemmy.ml/comment/16813438