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 2 days ago* (last edited 4 hours 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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[–] knatschus@discuss.tchncs.de 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I remember when stuff like this was used to show how dystopian china is.

[–] cypherpunks@lemmy.ml 1 points 3 hours ago

I haven't heard of academics and/or media from China advocating for applications of phrenology/physiognomy or other related racist pseudosciences. Have you?

[–] AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

Haven't you heard? Palantir CEO Says a Surveillance State Is Preferable to China Winning the AI Race.

Trump's current Science Advisor (who was selected by Peter Thiel) gave an interview back in 2019 where he kept insisting the U.S. was at a disadvantage to China in the AI race bc we didn't have access to the level of surveillance data China had (which it turns out, is possible thanks to a surveillance system we fucking created and sold to them). He also used this point to argue against any regulations for facial recognition tech in the U.S. because again, it would put us at a disadvantage.

But don't worry, because the goal is to have an authoritarian surveillance state with "baked in American values," so we won't have to worry about ending up like China did with the surveillance tools we fucking sold them.

I'm not sure what values he's claiming will be somehow baked into it (because again, we created it and sold it to China). My mind conjures up a scenario of automatic weapons and a speaker playing a screeching bald eagle, but maybe we'll get some star spangled banner thrown in there too.