AI can predict political orientations from blank faces – and researchers fear 'serious' privacy challenges

Rep. Jay Obernolte was selected to lead the House task force on AI. Fox News Digital speaks with the California Republican about his goals for the panel and his own thoughts about the rapidly advancing technology. Researchers are warning that facial recognition technologies are "more threatening than previously thought" and pose "serious challenges to privacy" after a study found that artificial intelligence can be successful in predicting a person's political orientation based on images of expressionless faces. A recent study published in the journal American Psychologist says an algorithm's ability to accurately guess one's political views is "on par with how well job interviews predict job success, or alcohol drives aggressiveness." Lead author Michal Kosinski told Fox News Digital that 591 participants filled out a political orientation questionnaire before the AI captured what he described as a numerical "fingerprint" of their faces and compared them to a database of their responses to predict their views.