How do you vote? 50 million Google images give a clue

For computers, as for humans, reading and observation are two distinct ways to understand the world, said a researcher

What vehicle is most strongly associated with Republican voting districts? Extended-cab pickup trucks. For Democratic districts? Sedans.
 
Those conclusions may not be particularly surprising. After all, market researchers and political analysts have studied such things for decades.
 
But what is surprising is how researchers working on an ambitious project based at Stanford University reached those conclusions: by analysing 50 million images and location data from Google Street View, the street-scene feature of the online giant’s mapping service. For the first time, helped by recent advances in artificial intelligence, researchers are able to analyse large quantities of images, pulling