Researchers have created a machine learning system that they claim can determine a person’s political party, with reasonable accuracy, based only on their face. TechCrunch reports: The study, which appeared this week in the Nature journal Scientific Reports, was conducted by Stanford University’s Michal Kosinski. Kosinski made headlines in 2017 with work that found that a person’s sexual preference could be…
Tag: Pseudoscience
The absurd logic of ‘this notice board is not in use’
How the pandemic forced a notice board to proclaim it is not in use, plus the best way to keep grounded according to pseudoscience and the court battle over if a bee is a fish, in Feedback’s weird weekly round-up Source: https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24833111-000-the-absurd-logic-of-this-notice-board-is-not-in-use/?utm_campaign=RSS%7CNSNS&utm_source=NSNS&utm_medium=RSS&utm_content=home…
Cancer Patient Complains: My Facebook Feed Is Full of ‘Alternative Care’ Ads
The author of an opinion piece in the New York Times describes what happened after sharing their cancer diagnosis on Facebook:
Since then, my Facebook feed has featured ads for “alternative cancer care.” The ads, which were new to my timeline, promote everything from cumin seeds to colloidal silver as cancer treatments. Some ads promise luxury clinics — or even “nontoxic cancer…
Facebook Gets Rid of ‘Pseudoscience’ Ad-Targeting Category
Facebook has removed “pseudoscience” as an option for advertisers that want to target audiences, a category available until this week even as the world’s largest social media network vowed to curb misinformation about the COVID-19 pandemic. Reuters reports: The company has also paused the availability of some other interest categories while it evaluates its list, a Facebook spokeswoman confirmed in an…
Want To Find a Misinformed Public? Facebook’s Already Done It
Last week, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a post pledging to combat misinformation about COVID-19 circulating on Facebook. “We’ve taken down hundreds of thousands of pieces of misinformation related to COVID-19, including theories like drinking bleach cures the virus or that physical distancing is ineffective at preventing the disease from spreading,” Zuckerberg wrote. But at the very same time, The Markup…
A Face-Scanning Algorithm Increasingly Decides Whether You Deserve the Job
Shmoodling shares a report from The Washington Post: Designed by the recruiting-technology firm HireVue, the system uses candidates’ computer or cellphone cameras to analyze their facial movements, word choice and speaking voice before ranking them against other applicants based on an automatically generated “employability” score. HireVue’s “AI-driven assessments” have become so pervasive in some industries, including hospitality and finance, that universities…