Liar, Liar, Face on Fire!

 We've been here before (see The Things We Know . . .).  When I was struggling to understand the Netflix series The OA, I rightly suspected that there might be some science behind the tv series, Lie to Me.  The science is based on the research of Dr. Paul Ekman, the psychologist who passed away last week at the age of 91.

Yes, we humans do perceive, sense, intuit and know things about each other and the world without knowing how we know, or even knowing that we know.  Now the quants of artificial intelligence are predicting that AI will be (or "is") better at reading humans than we humans are, and we know less than ever about how it is being done.

According to a recent article in The Economist, "[. . .] previous research suggests that personality types can be encoded in facial features, and that artificial intelligence can spot them." And quants at the University of Pennsylvania  "used an algorithm to analyse the pictures of 96,000 MBA graduates, and extract what they call the “Photo Big Five”—as they rename the Big Five personality traits of agreeableness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism and openness." 

The essay in The Economist offers this aside in parenthesis: "(Before you head to the mirror, it’s not obvious what the AI is seeing.)" So, yes, the presumption is that AI will be better at this than we are, and know more than we know about ourselves. And we don't know how.

The study carried out by Marius Guenzel et al at the University of Pennsylvania concluded that AI's facial recognition and analysis could successfully predict elements of future performance and behaviour.  Companies' using AI facial recognition and analysis to determine whom to hire and whom to exclude will, as the authors of the study point out, raise ethical questions.  Diving deeper into the philosophical debate about free will and determinism; determinism, once again, seems determinant.  Free will is incompatible with the laws of physics.   Your future is as plain and determined as the nose on your face and, of course, so is mine.