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What disturbs me is the potential for a government, like in Iran or Russia, to use this technology to automatically screen and label people, as a precursor to mass-scale systematic repression.

I get that this study is problematic, but there is no reason to automatically assume it's not possible. What evidence do we have that there is no correlation between ML consumable physical characteristics and our sexuality?

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Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios?

"Bad actors" using AI to influence debate, or writing "fake news" then promoting it with social media ads, etc?

> Doesn't that risk exist for many emergent AI scenarios?

Yes, and it is actually the bigger problem. Facial recognition and license plate scanners are already producing a "papers, please" situation.

The gay community, however, is more activist and more likely to fight back. Which is why this is getting such traction.

The study addresses this:

"Additionally, given that companies and governments are increasingly usingcomputer vision algorithms to detect people’s intimate traits, our findings expose a threat to the privacy and safety of gay men and women." (page 2)

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