this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
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165
AI Determines Sex of Person From Brain Scans - Neuroscience News (neurosciencenews.com)
submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
58 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

This article describes a new study using AI to identify sex differences in the brain with over 90% accuracy.

Key findings:

  • An AI model successfully distinguished between male and female brains based on scans, suggesting inherent sex-based brain variations.
  • The model focused on specific brain networks like the default mode, striatum, and limbic networks, potentially linked to cognitive functions and behaviors.
  • These findings could lead to personalized medicine approaches by considering sex differences in developing treatments for brain disorders.

Additional points:

  • The study may help settle a long-standing debate about the existence of reliable sex differences in the brain.
  • Previous research failed to find consistent brain indicators of sex.
  • Researchers emphasize that the study doesn't explain the cause of these differences.
  • The research team plans to make the AI model publicly available for further research on brain-behavior connections.

Overall, the study highlights the potential of AI in uncovering previously undetectable brain differences with potential implications for personalized medicine.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Interesting that it's only 90% accurate but looking at pictures of iris scans it's 98.88% accurate while an ophthalmologist can tell no difference between the scans from males and females.

Source

[–] [email protected] 16 points 9 months ago (1 children)

There are several reasons why the ability to determine gender from iris images is an interesting and potentially useful problem (3). One possible use arises in searching in an authorization database for a match. If the gender of a sample can be determined, it can be used to order the search reduce the average search time. Another possible use arises in social settings, where it may be useful to screen entry to an area based on gender but without recording identity (3). Gender classification is also important for collecting demographic information, for marketing research and for real-time electronic marketing. Yet another possible use is in high-security scenarios, where there may be value in knowing the gender of people who attempt entry but are not recognized as authorized persons.

So useful for marketing, and harassing my trans homies. Fuck that shit!

From a biological standpoint it is still quite fascinating

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

I mean the paper you quoted keeps saying "gender" ...Is it actually for affirming trans folks? Big if true but I obviously didn't read the source material.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

I did get curious and try to dig up if those irises were classified by gender identity or agab, and neither the paper quoted nor the paper they cited as the source clarify on that point. They do only use the word gender, though, never sex.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 9 months ago

While the iris study is interesting, looking at their dataset the pictures seem to include the area around the eye a little bit, including eye lashes, so after a cursory glance it seems odd that they even titled it as iris. However I didn’t read the full thing so it cold be that they cropped it somewhere. Although they are using large convolutions so a lot of detail is lost.