Michal Kosinski

Last updated
Michal Kosinski
(Michał Kosiński)
2023 michal kosinski (c)pavelbecker.jpg
Born (1982-05-08) May 8, 1982 (age 42)
Warsaw, Poland
CitizenshipAmerican, Polish
Education
Occupation Psychologist
Years active2013-present
Employer Stanford University
Known for
  • Research on predicting psychological traits from digital footprints
  • First article warning against Cambridge Analytica
TitleAssociate professor, Stanford University
Website michalkosinski.com

Michal Kosinski is an associate professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford University, a computational psychologist, and a psychometrician. He studies the psychological processes in Large Language Models (LLMs), as well as AI and big data to model and predict human behavior. [1]

Contents

He has co-authored the textbook Modern Psychometrics and published over 90 peer-reviewed papers in journals including Nature Computational Science, Scientific Reports, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Machine Learning, that have been cited over 21,000 times according to Google Scholar. [2]

He is among the top 1% of Highly Cited Researchers according to Clarivate. [3] His research inspired a cover of The Economist, [4] a 2014 theatre play "Privacy", multiple TED talks, a video game, and was discussed in thousands of books, press articles, podcasts, and documentaries. Kosinski was behind the first press article warning against Cambridge Analytica published in The Guardian. [5] His research exposed the privacy risks that they have exploited and measured the efficiency of their methods.

Kosinski appeared in the film Do You Trust This Computer alongside Elon Musk and Ray Kurzweil.

Education

Kosinski holds a doctorate in psychology from the University of Cambridge and master's degrees in psychometrics and in social psychology. He used to work as a post-doctoral scholar at Stanford's Computer Science Department, as the deputy director of the University of Cambridge Psychometrics Centre before that, and as a researcher at Microsoft Research (Machine Learning Group). [6]

Research

In 2013, Michal Kosinski and David Stillwell published a paper entitled "Private Traits and Attributes Are Predictable from Digital Records of Human Behavior". [7] Kosinski and his co-authors claimed that by studying someone's Facebook Likes, one could figure out personal traits and sensitive attributes they may not want to share, from sexual and political orientation to mental health. "Individual traits and attributes can be predicted to a high degree of accuracy based on records of users' Likes," they wrote.

Kosinski and Stillwell would improve their prediction methods and publish a paper that claimed that using Facebook Likes alone, a researcher could know someone better than their close friends or life partner. In 2012, Facebook had actually patented a method doing precisely what Kosinski and Stillwell did, "Determining user personality characteristics from social networking system communications and characteristics". [8]

Two weeks after Kosinski and Stillwell's paper was published, Facebook changed the default settings on Likes so that only friends could see them (until then, they were by default visible to anyone on the internet) unless people chose to share more widely. The exception was for Facebook itself, which saw everyone's Likes and could keep using them for targeting, ranking, selecting versions of products, and various other purposes.

In 2017, Kosinski co-published a paper showing that modern artificial intelligence can predict someone's sexual orientation based on facial images. [9] [10] [11] The research was conducted on over 130,000 pictures and used existing facial recognition systems and AI algorithm. Their AI could predict the sexual orientation of gay men 81% of the time, while a human would be right 61% of the time. [12]

Controversies

His research on facial recognition systems raised controversy although Kosinski and his co-author claimed they conducted it as a demonstration of the power of machine vision, to warn policy makers and to raise the alarm around the inevitable erosion of privacy.

While at Cambridge University, Kosinski was directly engaged in negotiations with Cambridge Analytica to work for the company on micro-targeting in elections. The negotiations broke down - per The Guardian [13] over Kosinski's demands for $500,000 in fees from Cambridge Analytica. [14] Kosinski's Cambridge University Department colleague Aleksandr Kogan decided to work for Cambridge Analytica to replicate Kosinski's & Stillwell's research, which upset them and their university department. [15] It was after the negotiations breakdown and Kogan's professional engagement with CA, that Kosinski decided to write and warn against Cambridge Analytica. Kosinski claims he 'had nothing to do with Cambridge Analytica'. [16]

See also

Related Research Articles

Psychometrics is a field of study within psychology concerned with the theory and technique of measurement. Psychometrics generally covers specialized fields within psychology and education devoted to testing, measurement, assessment, and related activities. Psychometrics is concerned with the objective measurement of latent constructs that cannot be directly observed. Examples of latent constructs include intelligence, introversion, mental disorders, and educational achievement. The levels of individuals on nonobservable latent variables are inferred through mathematical modeling based on what is observed from individuals' responses to items on tests and scales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Privacy</span> Seclusion from unwanted attention

Privacy is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves, and thereby express themselves selectively.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Physiognomy</span> Assessment of a persons character or personality from their outer appearance

Physiognomy or face reading is the practice of assessing a person's character or personality from their outer appearance—especially the face. The term can also refer to the general appearance of a person, object, or terrain without reference to its implied characteristics—as in the physiognomy of an individual plant or of a plant community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaydar</span> Colloquialism for intuitively assessing peoples sexual orientation

Gaydar is a colloquialism referring to the intuitive ability of a person to assess others' sexual orientations as homosexual, bisexual or straight. Gaydar relies on verbal and nonverbal clues and LGBT stereotypes, including a sensitivity to social behaviors and mannerisms like body language, the tone of voice used by a person when speaking, overt rejections of traditional gender roles, a person's occupation, and grooming habits.

Microtargeting is the use of online data to tailor advertising messages to individuals, based on the identification of recipients’ personal vulnerabilities. Such tactics can be used for promoting a product or a political candidate. Direct marketing data mining techniques that are used often involve predictive market segmentation. Microtargeting's tactics rely on transmitting a tailored message to a subgroup on the basis of unique information about that subgroup.

There are several approaches to defining the substance and scope of technology policy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Digital footprint</span> Ones unique set of traceable digital activities

Digital footprint or digital shadow refers to one's unique set of traceable digital activities, actions, contributions, and communications manifested on the Internet or digital devices. Digital footprints can be classified as either passive or active. The former is composed of a user's web-browsing activity and information stored as cookies. The latter is often released deliberately by a user to share information on websites or social media. While the term usually applies to a person, a digital footprint can also refer to a business, organization or corporation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">User profile</span> Data about an individual user

A user profile is a collection of settings and information associated with a user. It contains critical information that is used to identify an individual, such as their name, age, portrait photograph and individual characteristics such as knowledge or expertise. User profiles are most commonly present on social media websites such as Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn; and serve as voluntary digital identity of an individual, highlighting their key features and traits. In personal computing and operating systems, user profiles serve to categorise files, settings, and documents by individual user environments, known as ‘accounts’, allowing the operating system to be more friendly and catered to the user. Physical user profiles serve as identity documents such as passports, driving licenses and legal documents that are used to identify an individual under the legal system.

Big Data Scoring is a cloud-based service that lets consumer lenders improve loan quality and acceptance rates through the use of big data. The company was founded in 2013 and has offices in UK, Finland, Chile, Indonesia and Poland. The company's services are aimed at all lenders – banks, payday lenders, peer-to-peer lending platforms, microfinance providers and leasing companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Facebook like button</span> Feature of the social networking website Facebook

The like button on the social networking website Facebook was first enabled on February 9, 2009. The like button enables users to easily interact with status updates, comments, photos and videos, links shared by friends, and advertisements. Once clicked by a user, the designated content appears in the News Feeds of that user's friends, and the button also displays the number of other users who have liked the content, including a full or partial list of those users. The like button was extended to comments in June 2010. After extensive testing and years of questions from the public about whether it had an intention to incorporate a "Dislike" button, Facebook officially rolled out "Reactions" to users worldwide on February 24, 2016, letting users long-press on the like button for an option to use one of five pre-defined emotions, including "Love", "Haha", "Wow", "Sad", or "Angry". Reactions were also extended to comments in May 2017, and had a major graphical overhaul in April 2019.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Social media analytics</span> Process of gathering and analyzing data from social media networks

Social media analytics or social media monitoring is the process of gathering and analyzing data from social networks such as Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or Twitter. A part of social media analytics is called social media monitoring or social listening. It is commonly used by marketers to track online conversations about products and companies. One author defined it as "the art and science of extracting valuable hidden insights from vast amounts of semi-structured and unstructured social media data to enable informed and insightful decision-making."

Pushmeet Kohli is a computer and machine learning scientist at Google DeepMind where he holds the position of Vice President of research for the "Secure and Reliable AI" and "AI for Science and Sustainability". Before joining DeepMind, he was partner scientist and director of research at Microsoft Research and a post-doctoral fellow at the University of Cambridge. Kohli's research investigates applications of machine learning and computer vision. He has also made contributions in game theory, discrete algorithms and psychometrics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cambridge Analytica</span> 2013–2018 British political consulting firm

Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intelligence company and self-described "global election management agency" SCL Group by long-time SCL executives Nigel Oakes, Alexander Nix and Alexander Oakes, with Nix as CEO. The well-connected founders had contact with, among others, the British Conservative Party, royal family, and military. The firm maintained offices in London, New York City, and Washington, D.C. The company closed operations in 2018 in the course of the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, although firms related to both Cambridge Analytica and its parent firm SCL still exist.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christopher Wylie</span> Canadian data consultant (born 1989)

Christopher Wylie is a British-Canadian data consultant. He is noted as the whistleblower who released a cache of documents to The Guardian he obtained while he worked at Cambridge Analytica. This prompted the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, which triggered multiple government investigations and raised wider concerns about privacy, the unchecked power of Big Tech, and Western democracy's vulnerability to disinformation. Wylie was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018. He appeared in the 2019 documentary The Great Hack. He is the head of insight and emerging technologies at H&M.

Aleksandr Kogan is a Moldovan-born American scientist, who is known for his research on the link between oxytocin and kindness, and for having developed the app that allowed Cambridge Analytica to collect personal details of 30 million Facebook users. He worked as a University Lecturer at the University of Cambridge from 2012-2018 and is currently a technology entrepreneur.

In the 2010s, personal data belonging to millions of Facebook users was collected without their consent by British consulting firm Cambridge Analytica, predominantly to be used for political advertising.

Personality computing is a research field related to artificial intelligence and personality psychology that studies personality by means of computational techniques from different sources, including text, multimedia, and social networks.

<i>The Great Hack</i> 2019 documentary film

The Great Hack is a 2019 documentary film about the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal, produced and directed by Jehane Noujaim and Karim Amer, both previous documentary Academy Award nominees. The film's music was composed by Emmy-nominated film composer Gil Talmi. The Great Hack premiered at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival in the Documentary Premieres section and was released by Netflix on July 24, 2019.

Meta Platforms Inc., or Meta for short, has faced a number of privacy concerns. These stem partly from the company's revenue model that involves selling information collected about its users for many things including advertisement targeting. Meta Platforms Inc. has also been a part of many data breaches that have occurred within the company. These issues and others are further described including user data concerns, vulnerabilities in the company's platform, investigations by pressure groups and government agencies, and even issues with students. In addition, employers and other organizations/individuals have been known to use Meta Platforms Inc. for their own purposes. As a result, individuals’ identities and private information have sometimes been compromised without their permission. In response to these growing privacy concerns, some pressure groups and government agencies have increasingly asserted the users’ right to privacy and to be able to control their personal data.

David Michael Greenberg is a psychologist, neuroscientist, and musician. He is best known for his contributions to personality psychology, social psychology, social neuroscience, music psychology, and autism.

References

  1. ↑ "Dr. Michal Kosinski website". www.michalkosinski.com. Retrieved 2023-11-15.
  2. ↑ "Michal Kosinski". scholar.google.co.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  3. ↑ "Web of Science". www.webofscience.com. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  4. ↑ "What machines can tell from your face | Sep 9th 2017". The Economist. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  5. ↑ "Ted Cruz campaign using firm that harvested data on millions of unwitting Facebook users". The Guardian. 2015-12-11. Retrieved 2022-12-19.
  6. ↑ Kosinski, Dr Michal (2013-07-06). "Dr Michal Kosinski". www.psychometrics.cam.ac.uk. Retrieved 2022-12-09.
  7. ↑ Kosinski, Michal; Stillwell, David; Graepel, Thore (2013-04-09). "Private traits and attributes are predictable from digital records of human behavior". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 110 (15): 5802–5805. Bibcode:2013PNAS..110.5802K. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1218772110 . ISSN   0027-8424. PMC   3625324 . PMID   23479631.
  8. ↑ US 8825764,Nowak, Michael&Eckles, Dean,"Determining user personality characteristics from social networking system communications and characteristics",published 2014-09-02, assigned to Facebook Inc.
  9. ↑ "APA PsycNet". psycnet.apa.org.
  10. ↑ "Advances in AI are used to spot signs of sexuality" – via The Economist.
  11. ↑ "'I was shocked it was so easy': meet the professor who says facial recognition can tell if you're gay". The Guardian. July 7, 2018.
  12. ↑ "What machines can tell from your face" – via The Economist.
  13. ↑ "'Artificial intelligence can tell your sexuality and politics – and we should worry'". The Guardian. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
  14. ↑ "'I made Steve Bannon's psychological warfare tool': meet the data war whistleblower". The Guardian. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
  15. ↑ "Cambridge Analytica academics' work upset university colleagues". The Guardian. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
  16. ↑ "Michal Kosinski". Stanford Graduate School of Business. Retrieved 2024-09-22.
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