Counting the People

For John, BLUF:  The Ballot Box is still the arbiter of what people think.  Nothing to see here; just move along.

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Google Street Views AI Can Now Predict Race and Political Party

From Pajama Media, by Mr Phil Baker, 6 December 2017.

Here is the lede plus two:

In a paper published earlier this year, Stanford computer scientist Timnit Gebru wrote about how neighborhoods can be evaluated by the makes and models of the cars parked in their driveways.  The paper appeared in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and it's an interesting read.

By analyzing the images already available as part of Google Street Views, the research team was able to identify which neighborhoods were Republican and which were Democrat as well as many other characteristics.

It determined that in those areas where the number of sedans is higher than pickup trucks, there’s an 88 percent chance of the district voting Democratic.  Where there are more pickup trucks, there’s an 82 percent chance it’s a Republican-voting district.

In fact, the conclusion is that this is almost as good as the American Community Survey (ACS).  And quicker to analyze.  And cheaper to execute.

Hat tip to the InstaPundit.

Regards  —  Cliff