[MATCH] Your Face Predicts Your Behavior? - Comments Page 1

Sounds like a return to phrenology, with a tech update. Utter crap, with massive potential for abuse.

Hi Bob. Thanks for sharing yet more interesting information. (I’ve been a Tourbus / "Ask Bob Rankin" fan for years and have found it to be very informative and helpful!). As for your interesting article, I think it comes down to an issue of “wise use”. In other words, if the technology is misused, then it could have lots of negative effects. But if it is only wisely used for the good, then it could be used for example at airports to take those flagged through a stronger security checkpoint. So, to me it is like a gun. The police can use it for good. The criminals for bad.

Polygraphs are banned from court rooms, but many employers use them in pre-employment screenings and to ferret out thieves or other miscreants from their workforces. The specter of facial recognition software like Faception’s being used to justify hiring and firing decisions sends chills down my spine.

I can even imagine this technology being embedded in "smart glasses" that are capable of identifying potential threats as the wearer walks down the street. But Gilboa, who says he’s also Faception's “chief ethics officer,” vows that the company will never sell its technology to private sector firms, but only to law enforcement agencies.

Frankly, that’s of very little comfort to me. Now that the concept of Faception is public, someone will soon be peddling software that claims to ID undesirables on sight. Private employers and others who want to believe in such tech will believe in it, no matter how thin the evidence, and they will lobby Congress for the right to use it.

Bob, I agree with your above statements. Anytime someone comes out with new technology, there is the potential for misuse and abuse.

Bob for a change I think you have slightly misunderstood. This would appear to be an aid to professional profilers and I am dead certain nobody ever suggested it would be used in Court.

I know that profiling has a bad rap in the West but one day there will be no alternative to using the best tools available. Terrorists ain't gonna go away and I would feel safer at an El Al check-in than 'most anywhere else.

I hear you about the fact that once a new technology is out there some bad guy will make a bundle hawking it to badder guys however ethical the original inventor may be, but you know better than anyone that privacy went out with the 20th century and we have to get used to it.

Guilty til proven otherwise! With all that is going on in the world today, we are all becoming a little paranoid. I'm not sure something of this nature would be all that helpful. Maybe if it gets to a 100% but at 80% lots of people could be put through hell to prove they are not what the machine thinks they are.

I could see it used in airports where a positive may mean closer scrutiny of luggage rather than being hauled away to a undisclosed location for questioning.

Airports are also places where people expect to be screened and where people queue to pass through screening so giving the platform a chance and people are asked to remove glasses etc.

It's one thing to identify possible terrorists, but to rely on it to allow "no-risk" faces access to security-sensitive areas (airports, aircraft) is quite another issue.
I'd like to see what it predicts for well-known villains' faces - Nixon, Ted Bundy, Saddam Hussein etc and if it can spot a rubber facemask of famous people such as candidate Trump.
Wanna get the idea banned? Insist it is used for anyone wanting to buy a gun in the USA.

It's a tool. Many people have an innate ability to "judge" a persons character. Hopefully, it will not be the only element employers use in hiring.

I am disappointed it is not free to Bob Rankin readers to see how we come up! There's not even a price that I can find. Have to contact them!

What about the innocent 20% or the guilty 20% there is too much margin for error here, especially for law enforcement to be using!

@Richard --- I tend to agree with your assessment of using this technology. Airports would be a possible good place to start.

As it stands now, there isn't any good method of trying to find the terrorists that are going to do more damage to the USA. Remember - Israel has the most experience dealing with terrorists. Their airport is considered the safest in the world.

Israel has some of the most advanced technology in the world. Most people are not even aware that the USB Portable Driver was invented in Israel. Many medical advances have come from Israel's biometrics inventions. I am totally amazed what I have been finding out about Israel's advanced technology, especially in the medical field.

Do I want to see this technology being used in the courtroom? NO! 80% is not a good enough result. It needs to be 99.9% accurate, for courtroom usage. As for another method for profiling, I think this could be a useful tool. Not for determining the person guilt or innocence, only to see a possible behavior that isn't already noted.

Again, only for law enforcement or airport security checkers.

Fascinating article. Bob, I entirely agree with you. I once saw a picture of Prof Albert Einstein sticking out his tongue at someone. I wonder what the technology would make of that one, i.e. a temporary visage. Also, how about a picture of someone like Mephistopheles on a good day (when he is smiling)?

... Maybe in the next future ISIS will kidnap lots of facial surgery experts ...

I wonder if my passwordless phone would recognize me as a terrorist and call 911 itself?

Maybe all the ISIS people would be made to look like Jesus. That could certainly complicate the second coming.

I'm just as worried as you are about the misuse of such a tool, but it does have an appropriate use too.
For example, it could be used at airport security to pick out people for more in depth checks - not to arrest or convict them. It would probably be an improvement over what the TSA does today.

It is certainly not acceptable for court, etc, but is an Ok preliminary screening tool - when the results do not in anyway rely only on it.
I'm just worried, like you, that of course it will be abused for other purposes.

I have heard that, despite the hooplah, polygraphs are quackery, and I have no reason to believe this is not quackery. I have no idea how the lie detector's supporters got that statistic. The lie detector is winning by intimidation, pure and simple. In any case, do we even need Faception's device? Can't we just look at people and tell whether they are lying? Aren't we 100% accurate already?

One way to feel how an iPhone sees more than meets the eyes it the app Cardiio. It can count your heart beat because each heart beat causes a slight blush in the face. I tried it and it is quite accurate. Scary?

I see no mention of compensation for local genetic pools or cultural face clues as part of it's recognition; nor do I see it mentioned that it can spot the subtle multi-racial multi-cultural face shapes and expressions. Thus, there seem to ME to be a built-in bias for specific racial stereotypes --- and, My God!, haven't we moved a tad more towards nurture than nature? I mean, haven't we moved just a tiny TAD closer to learned behaviors than genetic determinism?

Things are often FAR more complicated than they seem. Studies now show that your behavior *MAY* be partly determined by your Grand parents diet while your parents were pregnant, or what type of environment your Grand- (and possibly Great-Grand-)parents were raised in.

I suspect it will utterly fail when confronted by todays multi-racial-ethnic-cultural pluralistic make-up of Humankind.

Sounds like pure hokum to me. Where's any independent research to support the company's 80% accuracy claim?

Didn't an Israeli company come out with a Voice Stress Analyzer several years ago? It was supposed to detect stress when a subject lied when responding to questions. I wonder how that worked out in real life?

The Israelis certainly have powerful motivations to find some way----to find ANY way----to keep dangerous people from entering or remaining in their country. Maybe face recognition will tag some persons and they can then be followed up by being voice stress tested?

By the way, Bob, I think your abbreviation could be made more accurate if it were "WashPoop."