Bad news for job hunters: Companies could start using AI to scan your face to decide on hiring you

Forget being worried about being replaced at work by artificial intelligence, AI could soon play a crucial role in deciding whether or not you get hired for a job in the first place.

AI study links facial features to personality traits

As bizarre as it may seem, a recent study, entitled “AI Personality Extraction from Faces: Labor Market Implications,” conducted by the University of Pennsylvania attempted to discover whether AI is able to detect how trustworthy you are, along with other personality traits, based on your face alone.

As highlighted by The Economist, the results show that AI does indeed believe your facial characteristics give away more about you that you might think, including whether you are financially successful, respectful and trustworthy.

How AI analyzed 96,000 LinkedIn profiles

How does AI determine such things? In this case, the technology analysed the faces of 96,000 MBA graduates who have LinkedIn accounts, extracting the “Big 5” personality traits based on their photos.

The five traits are: Openness (curiosity, aesthetic sensitivity, imagination), Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility), Extraversion (sociability, assertiveness, energy level), Agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness, trust), and Neuroticism (anxiety, depression, emotional volatility).

Those traits were then cross-referenced against each person’s work profile, which, in theory, offers details about their success in the working world.

What the study revealed about job performance and turnover

The study reached a host of fascinating conclusions, including that the notions that agreeableness and conscientiousness reduce job turnover for both genders, but extraversion and neuroticism increase it. Openness, meanwhile, reduces turnover for men but increases it for women.

The growing reach of AI in everyday life

So will we really have to get used to an algorithm choosing whether we get hired for a job, accepted for a bank loan or visa application, or allowed into a certain country?

AI software is already being used in some states to (attempt to) verify driving licenses, complicating the lives of individuals who have facial differences, as reported by Futurism. In the UK, the Met Police used AI-powered facial recognition to make a record number of arrests in 2024, although 0.5% were false positives.

Not ideal if you were one of the innocent ones.

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