(NewsNation) — Artificial intelligence can determine a person’s political leanings merely by the shape of their face and does so with a high level of accuracy, according to a new study.
The study, co-authored by Stanford University researcher Michal Kosinski, shows that AI can recognize conservatives and liberals simply by considering tiny nuances in facial features with a 70% success rate.
Liberals tend to have smaller, lower faces, while conservatives have larger, wider features, according to the study. In addition, the study showed that people who leaned more left politically have smaller lips and noses that “shifted downward” and had smaller chins than their more conservative counterparts, the study revealed.
Kosinski, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business, said on “The Hill” it is “unsurprising” that thousands of small physical features can be connected to a person’s psychological traits, such as political views.
“What we look like changes how people treat us,” Kosinski said. “And when people treat us differently across your lifetime, this will change your political orientation.”
The study included 591 participants, who first answered a political questionnaire which provided insights into which they leaned on certain social issues that typically inform political leanings, researchers said. The same participants then also had their faces scanned by technology that included A1 capabilities that was used to determine how facial features could be used in determining the person’s political beliefs.
“We demonstrate that political orientation can be predicted from neutral facial images by both humans and algorithms, even when factors like age, gender, and ethnicity are accounted for,” the study said “This indicates a connection between political leanings and inherent facial characteristics, which are largely beyond an individual’s control,” the study claims.
Kosinski, the Stanford professor, said Friday that attractive people tend to have higher salaries, are promoted more regularly, receive better grades and are more successful in winning political elections. All of these things tend to affect their facial features over time, Kosinski added.
In addition, one’s political affiliation will affect how one spends their free time, the professor said.
“Whether you’re sitting somewhere in a basement or you’re shooting ducks outside is also going to affect your facial appearance,” Kosinski said.
Kosinski does not believe AI will ever reach a 100% success rate, but he said that experts are seeing the technology becoming “more and more accurate” in predicting our intimate traits.