this post was submitted on 27 Feb 2024
165 points (87.7% liked)

Technology

60052 readers
3244 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
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.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago

That would embolden the anti-trans crowd.

Unfortunately no matter the outcome there's likely danger there which is why legal protections are going to be critical. If it doesn't accurately detect trans people they'd argue it's evidence that being trans is a choice and that they could just decide to "be normal". If it does accurately detect trans people in some ways that's even more dangerous because now you've created a trans detector that could potentially be used to target people.

Ultimately from a scientific perspective there's still so much we don't know about how our brains work and even less known about how gender and sexual orientation are determined. Projects like this provide valuable clues about all of that, but there's still so much that's unknown that any result is potentially useful. I personally would find it more interesting though if it did accurately detect someone whose trans as it would suggest there's physically detectable brain differences.