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Main Authors: Doh, Miriam, Gulati, Aditya, Mancas, Matei, Oliver, Nuria
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
Subjects:
Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11025
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author Doh, Miriam
Gulati, Aditya
Mancas, Matei
Oliver, Nuria
author_facet Doh, Miriam
Gulati, Aditya
Mancas, Matei
Oliver, Nuria
contents This paper examines how synthetically generated faces and machine learning-based gender classification algorithms are affected by algorithmic lookism, the preferential treatment based on appearance. In experiments with 13,200 synthetically generated faces, we find that: (1) text-to-image (T2I) systems tend to associate facial attractiveness to unrelated positive traits like intelligence and trustworthiness; and (2) gender classification models exhibit higher error rates on "less-attractive" faces, especially among non-White women. These result raise fairness concerns regarding digital identity systems.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2506_11025
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle When Algorithms Play Favorites: Lookism in the Generation and Perception of Faces
Doh, Miriam
Gulati, Aditya
Mancas, Matei
Oliver, Nuria
Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
This paper examines how synthetically generated faces and machine learning-based gender classification algorithms are affected by algorithmic lookism, the preferential treatment based on appearance. In experiments with 13,200 synthetically generated faces, we find that: (1) text-to-image (T2I) systems tend to associate facial attractiveness to unrelated positive traits like intelligence and trustworthiness; and (2) gender classification models exhibit higher error rates on "less-attractive" faces, especially among non-White women. These result raise fairness concerns regarding digital identity systems.
title When Algorithms Play Favorites: Lookism in the Generation and Perception of Faces
topic Machine Learning
Artificial Intelligence
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2506.11025