September 29, 2011 | Online

Google's gaydar

In its quest for total world domination, Google has stepped into territory once reserved for homosexuals: gaydar.

Ask Google if a celebrity is a homosexual and it will actually try to answer.

For example: ask "is Jake Gyllenhaal gay?" and Google replies that its "best guess for Jake Gyllenhaal Sexual orientation is Straight." Marcus Bachmann? Straight. Hugh Jackman? Straight. Elton John? Gay. Well, one correct answer out of four ain't bad. (What? We kid!)

The company did not create Google Gaydar, of course. It simply set up a series of algorithms (which we assume to be a group of very tiny librarians) to recognize certain questions, amalgamate the most popular results (from sites like Wikipedia) and provide an answer based on said results.

Interestingly, Google does not supply a guess for people like Tom Cruise, John Travolta or Anderson Cooper. Seems the system has a highly tuned sense of lawsuit-dar.

Or maybe they're European?

Thanks Manhunt Daily for the heads-up.