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How Do You Vote? 50 Million Google Images Give a Clue (nytimes.com)

Posted by msmash on from the next-up dept.

Artificial Intelligence is now being used to scan millions of pictures taken by Google Street View to glean insights like income or voting patterns, The New York Times reports. In a Stanford project, computers scanned millions of pictures of parked cars to predict voting patterns and pollution. From the report: The Stanford project gives a glimpse at the potential. By pulling the vehicles' makes, models and years from the images, and then linking that information with other data sources, the project was able to predict factors like pollution and voting patterns at the neighborhood level. "This kind of social analysis using image data is a new tool to draw insights," said Timnit Gebru, who led the Stanford research effort. The research has been published in stages, the most recent in late November in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In the end, the car-image project involved 50 million images of street scenes gathered from Google Street View. In them, 22 million cars were identified, and then classified into more than 2,600 categories like their make and model, located in more than 3,000 ZIP codes and 39,000 voting districts.

4 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Donald TRUMP by ArtemaOne · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Right, she campaigned to her constituants, losing the states that gave her opponent far more electoral votes for an easy win. Stupid decision that saved us from one mess and got us another. Vote third party!

  2. ridiculous by swell · · Score: 1, Interesting

    I hope they noticed my car, in front of my home, on election day. Like millions of others I vote by mail. Furthermore, there is probably an identifiable class of people who do that. A clear understanding of that segment of voters would interest those who pay for such studies more than the results of this ridiculous experiment.

    --
    ...omphaloskepsis often...
    1. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Alabama requires every voter to have a valid photo ID to cast a ballot. While a driver’s license is the most common form of ID in the state, Bentley said anyone without a driver’s license can go to any county register’s office and have a photo ID made and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

      Bentley also pointed out that every probate judge in the state has the authority to renew driver’s licenses and the closing of the DMV offices will not change that fact.

      Bentley said not only is the state not engaged in any effort to curtail voting, it is doing all it can to make sure anyone who wants to vote will be able to register to vote.

      “We will go to people’s houses to have their picture made if they don’t have a photo ID in the state of Alabama,” said Bentley. “We’re not ever going to do anything to keep people in the state of Alabama from voting. And for them to jump to a conclusion like that, that is politics at its worst.”

    2. Re:ridiculous by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I'm not the poster you're responding too, but:

      Here's a snopes link on the subject.

      Snopes lost all credibility years ago when they had a Democractic activist doing their political fact checking. Interestingly, Google makes this particularly hard to search for now that they use Snopes as a fact checking basis, thus including "snopes" in the search pretty much takes you to snopes.com (-site:snopes.com takes you to other fact checking sites).

      But, the sketchiness of the male founder or Snopes, who re-married to a former escort and pornstar who happens to also work for Snopes.com. Regardless of the truth of the matter, the original founders are in a nasty divorce and they're both quite willing to either cheat or lie to publicly ruin each other:

      They are accusing each other of financial impropriety, with Barbara claiming her ex-husband is guilty of 'embezzlement' and suggesting he is attempting a 'boondoggle' to change tax arrangements, while David claims she took millions from their joint accounts and bought property in Las Vegas. ...

      She also claimed he embezzled $98,000 from the company over the course of four years 'which he expended upon himself and the prostitutes he hired'.

      (From a right-leaning website: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4042194/Facebook-fact-checker-arbitrate-fake-news-accused-defrauding-website-pay-prostitutes-staff-includes-escort-porn-star-Vice-Vixen-domme.html)

      "Can you provide links to back up that position"

      ... for something that did not happen?

      I do not live in Alabama, but I know that people were saying the exact same things about Virginia, where I do live. This has not happened at all here.

      It's somewhat unfortunate that you need to spend a whole $10 on a Voter ID, but it's also a myth that that is blocking people from voting to begin with. If it were, then Democrats would be submitting legislation to help such poor individuals get free ID cards. Instead, practically all Democrats cry "racism", which is amusingly racist: only black people cannot afford to get Voter IDs? If that's even remotely true, then there's a much bigger problem in the areas that are politically dominated by ... Democratic politicians.

      Maybe instead of talking down about your favorite constituents, you all should actually try helping them?