Prominent LGBT+ organisations GLAAD and the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) have hit out at a recent study that claims artificial intelligence can be used to identify straight or gay people from their facial features.
Dr. Michal Kosinski and Yilun Wang from Stanford University Given found that “given a single facial image, a classifier could correctly distinguish between gay and heterosexual men in 81% of cases, and in 71% of cases for women.”
Jim Halloran, GLAAD’s Chief Digital Officer says the research only focuses on white gay and lesbian people and is “reckless”.
“Technology cannot identify someone’s sexual orientation,” Halloran says.
“What their technology can recognise is a pattern that found a small subset of out white gay and lesbian people on dating sites who look similar. Those two findings should not be conflated.
“This research isn’t science or news, but it’s a description of beauty standards on dating sites that ignores huge segments of the LGBTQ community, including people of colour, transgender people, older individuals, and other LGBTQ people who don’t want to post photos on dating sites.”
HRC Director of Public Education and Research Ashland Johnson said the study is “dangerously bad information that will likely be taken out of context”.
“[It’s] based on flawed assumptions, and threatens the safety and privacy of LGBTQ and non-LGBTQ people alike,” says Johnson.
“Imagine for a moment the potential consequences if this flawed research were used to support a brutal regime’s efforts to identify and/or persecute people they believed to be gay.
“Stanford should distance itself from such junk science rather than lending its name and credibility to research that is dangerously flawed and leaves the world — and this case, millions of people’s lives — worse and less safe than before."
The research—that was widely picked up by mainstream media outlets—said that gay men and women tended to have “gender-atypical facial morphology, expression and grooming styles.”
GLAAD and HRC pointed out a number of the study’s flaws—including that it assumed there were only two sexual orientations (gay and straight), it did not include people of colour and that it reviewed superficial characteristics of gay men and women on dating sites, including weight, hairstyle and facial expressions.
The two organisations noted that they raised these problems several months ago with the researchers but none of their concerns were addressed.
