this post was submitted on 11 Nov 2025
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The Economist on using phrenology for hiring and lending decisions: "Some might argue that face-based analysis is more meritocratic" […] "For people without access to credit, that could be a blessing" (lemmy.ml)
submitted 3 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) by cypherpunks@lemmy.ml to c/technology@lemmy.world
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cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/38830374

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economist article

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrenology

excerpts of economist article:

screenshot of text "Imagine appearing for a job interview and, without saying a single word, being told that you are not getting the role because your face didn’t fit. You would assume discrimination, and might even contemplate litigation.But what if bias was not the reason? What if your face gave genuinely useful clues about your probable performance at work? That question is at the heart of a recent research"

[...]

screenshot of text "a shorter one. Some might argue that face-based analysis is more meritocratic than processes which reward, say, educational attainment. Kelly Shue of the Yale School of Management, one of the new paper’s authors, says they are now looking at whether AI facial analysis can give lenders useful clues about a person’s propensity to repay loans. For people without access to credit, that could be a blessing."

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[–] oce@jlai.lu 28 points 3 days ago (4 children)

I looked for the original article, abstract:

Human capital—encompassing cognitive skills and personality traits—is critical for labor market success, yet the personality component remains difficult to measure at scale. Leveraging advances in artificial intelligence and comprehensive LinkedIn data, we extract the Big 5 personality traits from facial images of 96,000 MBA graduates, and demonstrate that this novel" Photo Big 5" predicts school rank, compensation, job seniority, industry choice, job transitions, and career advancement. Using administrative records from top-tier MBA programs, we find that the Photo Big 5 exhibits only modest correlations with cognitive measures like GPA and standardized test scores, yet offers comparable incremental predictive power for labor outcomes. Unlike traditional survey-based personality measures, the Photo Big 5 is readily accessible and potentially less susceptible to manipulation, making it suitable for wide adoption in academic research and hiring processes. However, its use in labor market screening raises ethical concerns regarding statistical discrimination and individual autonomy.

The PDF is downloadable here: https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=2eia4X4AAAAJ&sortby=pubdate&citation_for_view=2eia4X4AAAAJ%3A_FxGoFyzp5QC

I don't have the time nor the expertise to read everything to understand how they take into account the bias that good looking white men with educated parents are way more likely to succeed at life.

[–] loonsun@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 day ago

Hi, Organizational Psychologist here who works in a lab alongside my personality Psych research supervisor. I have never heard of this method, never read this in any of the literature, and am genuinely disgusted anyone got ethics approval to run this study. The only way we use ML to evaluate personality is using natural language due to the tenants of the lexical hypothesis. I have never seen anyone attempt to create a big five measure from facial recognition nor have I ever heard of any theoretical models for personality based on faces...except for phrenology

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 31 points 3 days ago (1 children)

one can also get the full paper directly from yale here without needing to solve a google captcha:

https://insights.som.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2025-01/AI%20Personality%20Extraction%20from%20Faces%20Labor%20Market%20Implications_0.pdf

I don’t have the time nor the expertise to read everything to understand how they take into account the bias that good looking white men with educated parents are way more likely to succeed at life.

i admittedly did not read the entire 61 pages but i read enough to answer this:

spoilerthey don't

[–] underisk@lemmy.ml 14 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (1 children)

Lmao they source the photos from LinkedIn profiles. I’m sure that didn’t bias their training at all. Yes sir there’s no chance this thing is selecting for anything but facial features.

Edit: double lmao they’re all MBAs

Edit2: they didn't even train the AI!! this paper is them just feeding linkedin photos into a third-party black-box API and then nodding thoughtfully at the results. i cant tell you how stupid the AI is because I can't find any information about it or even the API mentioned in the paper.

[–] Seleni@lemmy.world 6 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wow. When I saw the article I figured it would be bad, but that’s even worse than I expected lol

What is it with these idiots trying to re-brand racism and reinvent phrenology every few decades? Are they stupid enough to believe they’re the first to think of shit like this, or are they hoping we’re dumb enough to fall for it this time around?

[–] ivanafterall@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

They're hoping they have sufficient cover with Nazis in the White House and they're probably right.

[–] Maeve@kbin.earth 3 points 3 days ago

How many times has Big 5 been debunked yet employers still like it for reasons?

[–] usualsuspect191@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago

I'm wondering if things like FAS (which can have certain facial characteristics) are muddling the results as well.