AI can predict person’s politics by their looks, whether they smile in pics: study

Artificial intelligence algorithms can help predict a person’s political ideology based on their facial characteristics, a study conducted in Denmark found.

The tech found right-wing politicians were more likely to have happy facial expressions in photos while people pictured with neutral facial expressions were more likely to identify as left-wing, the study said.

The study, "Using deep learning to predict ideology from facial photographs: expressions, beauty, and extra-facial information," found that AI can predict a person’s political ideology with 61% accuracy when analyzing a photo of a person.

Deep learning, a method in AI where computer scientists teach computers to learn and process information similar to humans, can be used to make predictions about people based on photographs alone, the researchers explained in their paper, which was published in Scientific Reports.

The scientists tried to pin down exactly "what information contributes to the predictive success of these techniques," according to researchers.

Humans are able to read another person’s face and make judgments almost immediately about personality, intelligence and even political ideology. Study author Stig Hebbelstrup Rye Rasmussen of Arhus University and his colleagues explored if computational neural networks – algorithms that mimic the structure and function of human brains – can predict a person’s political ideology based on a single photo alone.

Facial recognition

The scientists trained the neural network with thousands of photos of politicians from the nation’s 2017 municipal elections, noting the elections were not highly polarized nor competitive, and referred to the politicians as the "last amateurs in politics."

They did away with any photos of candidates who were not explicitly left- or right-wing, were not of European ethnic origin or had been photographed with a beard. The photos only depicted the facial features of the candidates, not photos with backgrounds that could alter predictions. The researchers were then left with 4,647 photos of political candidates, 1,442 of which depicted female politicians.

The researchers used facial expression recognition technology from Microsoft to measure the emotional state seen in the photos, as well as other algorithms to determine attractiveness and even masculinity of the candidates. They also used a handful of photos of Danish parliamentarians to test the algorithm’s accuracy.

Denmark elections

People vote during the European Parliament elections in Copenhagen, Denmark, May 26, 2019. (Ida Marie Odgaard via Reuters)

In all, the research found that the AI trained on the data could accurately predict ideology to the tune of 61% – showing the algorithms could predict political affiliation better than pure chance.

"Our results confirmed the threat to privacy posed by deep learning approaches," the researchers wrote. "Using a pre-developed and readily available network that was trained and validated exclusively on publicly available data, we were able to predict the ideology of the pictured person roughly 60% of the time in two samples."

The research found female politicians who were more attractive were more likely conservative, while attractiveness and masculinity for men was not tied to political ideology. Faces of both men and women who appeared happier were also more likely to be right-wing, while neutral facial expressions meant the politicians were more likely members of left-wing parties. The study added that though it was more rare, women who showed contempt on their faces were more likely left-leaning.

https://www.foxnews.com/tech/ai-can-predict-persons-politics-by-their-looks-whether-they-smile-in-pics-study

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AMC abruptly cancels film showcasing stories of detransitioners

Detransitioner Laura Becker, who was featured in the documentary, warns suppressing the film exposing the dangerous side of transgender treatment sets an 'incredibly dangerous precedent.'

AMC Theaters has abruptly canceled screenings of a documentary film showcasing the experiences of detransitioners following a campaign by a transgender group to have the film pulled.

"No Way Back: The Reality of Gender-Affirming Care" shares the stories of five young detransitioners and insight from a dozen medical experts on the "harm" being posed by health care providers pushing transitions.

Producers of the film claim AMC shelved screenings scheduled to begin June 21 after intense pressure from a group called the Queer Trans Project, which did not have access to view the full documentary.

Laura Becker, a detransitioner featured in the film, slammed the move Monday on "Fox & Friends."

"I think it's incredibly dangerous to set this precedent of suppressing free speech, suppressing viewpoints that basically are just unpopular or difficult to deal with," Becker said.

AMC did not offer "Fox & Friends" a statement on their decision not to screen the film, but a source familiar with the matter attested the move to poor ticket sales, claiming only 139 tickets had been sold nationally ahead of the release.

The Queer Trans Project, which sends "Build-a-Queer kits" to transitioning LGBTQ+ individuals including chest binders and tucking tape, launched an aggressive online campaign encouraging protesters to send letters to AMC executive leadership to stop the documentary.

The group then took a victory lap after the film's cancellation, posting: "We did it! Our community's swift action is a testament to the power of advocacy and the importance of raising our voices against harmful content. Your collective efforts have made a significant impact, and the decision to pull No Way Back from AMC theaters is a step towards fostering a more inclusive and respectful environment. Thank you for your dedication and commitment to creating positive change."

Becker defended the film, saying it shows the importance of addressing mental health issues rather than jumping to transgender medical treatment. She began transitioning to male as a teenager by taking testosterone and removing her breasts. She detransitioned at 22 years old after being evaluated with PTSD.

"I think that there is a large scale eradication of boundaries and common sense, especially when it comes to children's developmental health,"she said.

"They are being fast-tracked on a conveyor belt-like system to getting surgery and hormones which create permanent damages instead of addressing their actual mental health concerns."

Although Becker said the issue is nonpartisan, she is grateful conservatives are speaking up.

"There are many moderates, liberals and independents, such as myself and the filmmakers who are just trying to increase awareness about mental health issues and medical ethics. It's not political, it is pro-gay. It is pro, you know, neurodivergent acceptance, all sorts of so-called liberal or progressive values. But in this case, the boundaries are being crossed to harm people, and the liberals are afraid to speak up about it."

A statement from the film's distribution company Deplorable Films read in part: "It is quite evident that those undertaking this crusade against this film have not had the courtesy of seeing it before taking such extreme actions to silence it. We stand by our filmmakers."

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The website for the film says it will be made available for streaming and on DVD "as soon as possible."

https://www.foxnews.com/media/amc-abruptly-cancels-film-documenting-journey-detransitioners-backlash

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Dodgers Celebrate Hate

The Los Angeles Dodgers are one of the most storied franchises in Major League Baseball (MLB), having won a total of seven World Series titles and twenty-four National League pennants since their founding in Brooklyn. The team is valued at $4.8 billion, second only to the New York Yankees in MLB.

Why would such a successful franchise honor a hate group, the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (SPI)?” This detestable organization regularly mocks Catholics and offends all Christians by their blasphemous portrayals of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, using the cross as a stripper pole.

SPI is composed of men who sacrilegiously portray Catholic nuns by wearing gaudy make-up and outlandish costumes. On their website, the group claims they are a “leading-edge Order of queer and trans nuns.” Their official motto is “go and sin some more” and in a recent statement maintained that their mission is to “expose the forces of bigotry, complacency, and guilt that chain the human spirit.”

After initially deciding to honor SPI at their “Pride Night” celebration, the Dodgers received justified criticism from Catholics and Christians, so they rescinded the invitation. Then, after receiving intense blowback from LGBTQ+ activists, the Dodgers reissued their invitation to honor the “Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence'' at their “Pride Night” celebration, which was held last Friday night at Dodger Stadium.

The Dodgers offered their “sincerest apologies” to the “Sisters,” who accepted their request for forgiveness and noted that the team “worked for 10 years with our community and as well they have asked us to continue an ongoing relationship with them.”

On Friday night, the group was represented by two “Sisters” who were acknowledged and honored well before the start of the Dodgers game. In front of a sparse crowd of supporters, the team made an announcement that the group was recognized for “their outstanding service to the LGBTQ+ community” and received a “Community Heroes Award.”

The power of the LGBTQ+ movement is obvious because the Dodgers decided to recognize a fringe organization, while offending a much larger group. The team must have made the decision that it was a better course of action to placate the LGBTQ+ community rather than the millions of Catholics throughout Los Angeles and the country.

As SPI was being honored inside the stadium, thousands of Catholics and Christians held protests outside. The crowds were so large that the front entrance to Dodger Stadium was briefly blocked. There was a rally and a mass for the demonstrators who were both peaceful and prayerful. It was inspiring to see so many people of faith protesting the incredibly unwise decision by the Dodgers.

Fortunately, not all the players supported the team’s actions. Two Dodger players, Clayton Kershaw, and Blake Treinen expressed their opposition to the “Sisters” being honored. Of course, everyone should realize that an MLB organization like the Dodgers should have only one priority, winning baseball games.

All other activities, such as affiliating with an organization that mocks a religion practiced by 1.3 billion people around the world is not only a distraction, it is also quite harmful. Certainly, among the fan base of the Dodgers, are millions of Catholics and only a handful of followers of the recognized hate group.

As noted by famed Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling in an interview on Fox News, the decision by the Dodgers to affiliate with the “Sisters” will only please “10,000 trans people” in Los Angeles and even that figure is “probably pushing it.” He believes that these activists are not fans and “will never step foot in Dodger Stadium again.”

Even worse, by honoring SPI, a much larger group, practicing Catholics and Christians, has been offended. The decision is perplexing for a team that has previously been quite successful. It will hurt the Dodgers both financially and with their fan base.

Nonetheless, the Dodgers are following a pattern established in recent years by many other major American corporations. Small groups, such as transgender activists, are being celebrated and championed, regardless of the impact on large numbers of consumers.

For example, the retail giant Target affiliated with a designer who featured satanic merchandise on his website. Bud Light chose to highlight a transgender activist, Dylan Mulvaney, in commercials and on a commemorative beer can. The results have been devastating with a combined loss of $40 billion in market value for Target and Bud Light.

Clearly, the Dodgers knew the negative impact of honoring SPI, but decided to proceed anyway. According to Brian Burch of CatholicVote.org, the Dodgers chose to affiliate with a hate group and “slap Catholics in the face.” Burch predicted that the Dodgers would become “the Bud Light of Baseball” for honoring such a “vile” organization.

Burch believes that the negative response to the Dodgers will grow as “more Catholics in Los Angeles learn about this” and more will become “ashamed” that the team decided to give such an “honor” to a group that engages in “sacrilegious” anti-Catholic activities.

Despite the horrific decision by the Dodgers, the response from faithful Catholics has been encouraging. Burch’s organization launched a massive advertising campaign criticizing the Dodgers for their decision. In addition, the group Catholics for Catholics organized the successful rally outside Dodger Stadium. On their Twitter page, the Catholic activists touted the “Massive outpouring” at the rally with an attendance over “5K Strong.”

The backlash has begun to these woke corporate decisions, whether it involves a brand of beer, a retailer, or a baseball team. Americans are starting to realize what is happening in corporations and are registering their strong disapproval, which can be expressed in ways such as rallies at Dodger Stadium or using their economic power as in the case of Bud Light and Target.

These are welcome developments, and it is appropriate that the “Silent Majority” of Americans start acting. Millions of Americans need to reevaluate what sports teams to support, where to shop and what products to purchase. Americans must no longer affiliate with any organization that mocks their values.

https://townhall.com/columnists/jeffcrouere/2023/06/19/dodgers-celebrate-hate-n2624657

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Attack of the MeToo zombies in Australia

"Me too" refers to claims by women that they have been victimized by men

What began as a soap opera has morphed into a zombie movie that refuses to die. With the Brittany Higgins saga now in its 28th month, we have learned more than we ever wished to know about the characters but the plot’s central question remains unanswered. It revolved around the sordid question of whether or not Higgins and her co-worker Bruce Lehrmann had had intercourse in the early hours of Saturday 23 March 2019 in the office of the then minister for defence industry, Senator Linda Reynolds, and if so, whether it was consensual. Higgins alleged she was raped. Lehrmann strenuously denied the allegation.

There was never any way of knowing beyond reasonable doubt what happened. There was no physical evidence, no eyewitnesses. Both parties have admitted to telling lies so both were unreliable witnesses. Both had consumed alcohol. But the burden of proof falls on the prosecuter and the accused remains innocent until proven guilty.

One might have hoped that the story would have ended there. One reason it didn’t was that both parties had committed a serious security breach by entering, without any justification, the Minister for Defence’s office, a place that contains highly classified material. In Lehrmann’s case, it was his second security breach and he was sacked but it was Higgins’ first breach and she was given a second chance.

Since then, the Higgins affair has spawned reviews, inquiries, an aborted trial, and ongoing defamation cases. It’s been fertile ground for the #MeToo movement. Former sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins inquired into the workplace culture at Parliament House. Walter Sofronoff KC inquired into the handling of Lehrmann’s trial, prompting ACT Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Shane Drumgold to admit to behaving badly. He’s not the only one.

Thanks to a trove of leaked text messages sent between Higgins and Sharaz and a mammoth five-hour audio recording of a meeting between Lisa Wilkinson, a former host of Channel Ten’s The Project, Angus Llewellyn, the producer of The Project, and Higgins and Sharaz, we know that all of the above behaved badly.

There has been much handwringing over the politicisation of the Higgins affair and the damage that it might do to Higgins. When Lehrmann’s trial was aborted, the ACT DPP dropped the charges against Lehrmann not because there was insufficient evidence but because of concern about Higgins’ mental health. But what the new information reveals is that nobody was more actively engaged in weaponising Higgins’ allegations than Higgins herself. She seems to rival only Prince Harry in her quest to breach her own privacy.

The texts expose what looks like detailed planning by Higgins and Sharaz to enlist Labor MPs in their bid to ‘tear down’ the Morrison government. Higgins appears jubilant that Morrison is about to be ‘f-cked over’. Just wait,’ she texts Sharaz. ‘We’ve got him.’

The texts also show that Finance Minister Katy Gallagher misled the Senate when she declared on 4 June 2021, that ‘no one (in the Labor party) had any knowledge’ of Brittany Higgins’ rape allegation before Higgins publicised it herself. With the confected condemnation of an antipodean Greta Thunberg, Gallagher turned on Reynolds and demanded, ‘How dare you?’ snarling that Reynolds’ remarks were ‘all about protecting yourself!’

This week, that particular chicken came home to roost and Gallagher found herself in the spotlight doing her best to protect herself. She claimed that she hadn’t misled parliament when she said ‘no one had any prior knowledge’ of Higgins’ allegations while also admitting that she had indeed had prior knowledge.

It is now clear that it was the late Labor Senator Kimberley Kitching who opposed the weaponisation of Higgins’ rape allegation and warned that if Labor’s skulduggery ever came to light, it would blow up in their faces. For her integrity and foresight, she was kicked out of Labor’s tactics group and mercilessly bullied by Gallagher, Senator Penny Wong, and then senator Kristina Keneally – the mean girls.

In another revelation, Llewellyn and Wilkinson encouraged Higgins to secretly record a conversation with Cash, which is illegal.

Wilkinson also mocks Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price’s name and claimed she was only preselected because of her race. Sharaz says, ‘It’s like, “I’m not racist. I have a black friend” – it’s that argument.’ Wilkinson adds: ‘And our cleaner’s black.’ Wilkinson didn’t even bother to apologise for her comments until she was publicly called out by Jacinta Price and even then only for any offence she ‘may have caused’.

Leftists have expunged from memory that it was the Labor party that created the White Australia policy, the Liberal party that abolished it and the first Aboriginal in parliament, Neville Bonner, as well as the first Aboriginal minister, Ken Wyatt, were both Liberals.

Higgins is recorded saying she was always acutely aware of the potential to ‘commodify’ her allegations. And what a valuable commodity it turned out to be. With the help of Sharaz, she turns a night of alleged drunken debauchery into a modern-day morality play in which she is ‘a national hero’ of the MeToo movement, as Australian of the Year Grace Tame put it, and her former employers – all women – are scheming villains who subject her to negligence, victimisation, sex discrimination, and harassment in the wake of her allegation against Lehrmann and discourage her from speaking with police.

There is no evidence to back these allegations. Reynolds and Cash and former chief of staff Fiona Brown, all strongly encouraged Higgins to go to the police. Brown wept as she recounted in court that Higgins sent her a message thanking her for all her help.

Higgins did go to the police but delayed pressing charges for two years until she had weaponised her allegations against the government and ensured Lehrmann would be judged in the court of public opinion.

Her strategy has been richly rewarded. Her claims were settled by Labor Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus following a one-day mediation from which Reynolds and Cash were excluded. The payment was rumoured to be close to $3 million.

The saga is far from over but the zombie allegations have left a trail of victims. Reynolds lost her senior portfolio. Brown felt publicly demonised and suicidal. The government lost the election. Kitching was bullied, perhaps into an early grave. Will the zombie allegations now turn on those who made them? With Labor controlling both houses of parliament, the mean girls might not be losing too much sleep for the moment.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2023/06/attack-of-the-metoo-zombies/

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My other blogs. Main ones below:

http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)

http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)

http://australian-politics.blogspot.com (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)

http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)

http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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