Because we intended to use cars as a proxy for exploring larger socioeconomic questions—correlating them with aspects of their owners’ identities like income, education, and occupation—we had to face the fact that dramatic gaps in monetary value often translate to only subtle differences in outward appearance. So while we had little trouble distinguishing a Cadillac sedan from a Toyota pickup truck, early experiments suggested it was perilously easy for a “naively” trained classifier to mistake a Cadillac for, say, a Honda Accord, especially when the cars were painted in similar
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