AI infers people’s personality from selfies better than humans: Study

Russian researchers have revealed that artificial intelligence (AI) is able to infer people’s personality from ‘selfie’ photographs better than humans

The study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, revealed that personality predictions based on female faces appeared to be more reliable than those for male faces.

The study was done in a sample of 12,000 volunteers who completed a self-report questionnaire measuring personality traits and uploaded a total of 31,000 selfies.

It is said that the technology can be used to find the ‘best matches’ in customer service, dating or online tutoring

Researchers teamed up with a Russian-British business start-up BestFitMe to train a cascade of artificial neural networks to make reliable personality judgments based on photographs of human faces.

The artificial intelligence was able to make above-chance judgments about conscientiousness, neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, and openness based on selfies the volunteers uploaded online. Conscientiousness emerged to be more easily recognizable than the other four traits.