A new study by researchers from four universities claims artificial intelligence (AI) models can predict career and educational success from a single image of a persons face.The researchers from Ivy League schools and others used photos from LinkedIn and photo directories of several top US MBA programs to determine what is called the Big Five personality traits for 96,000 graduates. It then compared those personality traits to employment outcomes and education histories of the graduates to determine correlation between the personality and success.The findings highlight the significant impact AI could have as it shapes hiring practices. Employers and job seekers are increasingly turning to generative AI (genAI) to to automate their search tasks, whether its creating a shortlist of candidates for a position or writing a cover letter and resume. And data shows applicants can use AI to improve the chances of getting a particular job or a company finding the perfect talent match.I think personality affects career outcomes, and to the extent we can infer personality, we can predict their career outcomes, said Kelly Shue, a study co-author and a Yale School of Management (SOM) finance professor.Shue also noted there are many disturbing moral implications related to organizations using AI models to determine personalities. I do worry this could be used in a way to put lightly it could make a lot of people unhappy, she said. Imagine using it in a hiring setting or as part of university admissions. A firm is trying to hire the best possible workers, and now in addition to screening on standard stuff, such as where you went to school and what degrees you have and your work experience, theyre going to screen you on your personality.I think our study may prompt [the technologys] use, although were careful in the way we wrote it up in that were not advocating for adoption, Shue said.Organizations have been screening job applicants based on personality for years using behavioral assessments such as Pymetrics games, which measure up to 91 personality traits that fit into 9 different categories.In fact, Shue said, a ton of companies already heavily use these more obvious estimates of someones personality, they just havent been doing that from pictures of a persons face, she said. Ive known students who dont get a callback after the behavioral assessment. So, presumably they were screened out based just on personality.Derived from a psychology framework, the Big Five personality traits (also known as the OCEAN model) comprise: Openness (curiosity, aesthetic sensitivity, imagination); Conscientiousness (organization, productiveness, responsibility); Extraversion (sociability, assertiveness, energy level); Agreeableness (compassion, respectfulness, trust); and Neuroticism (anxiety, depression, emotional volatility).Yale School of ManagementDepending on which personality trait surfaces in the AIs assessment, a school or company might pass an applicant by. For example, someone whose photo shows a tendency toward neuroticism is less likely to be hired.Neurotic is a very important personality trait, Shue said. In much of our analysis, it seems to have substantial predictive power for labor market outcomes, often going in a negative direction.Or, for example, someone who is less conscientious might be passed over by college admissions. I think its possible personality matters for admissions, Shue said. Maybe schools want people who are going to be successful in their future careers, maybe they want diversity in personality, but certainly personality does matter for a lot of outcomes.To the extent that a school wants to admit a class thats more likely to have [successful outcomes] theyd want to screen on personality.Using a combination of computer vision and AI natural language processing (NLP) technologies, the researchers from Yale, the University of Pennsylvania, Reichman University, and Indiana University, were able to determine how the personality traits played into career and educational outcomes.While someone changing their expression in a photo could play into how the AI perceives personality, Shue said the researchers seen stability in results using different photographs of the same individual. We can also use separate algorithms to determine whether a person is smiling or not and if theyre holding that smile fixed, she said.There has already been pushback on the use of AI in culling job candidates, as the technology has proven to be flawed based on its data sources. As AI continues to influence hiring practices, this research invites further exploration into its ethical, practical, and strategic considerations, the study states.Shue said the research highlights how cognitive skills and personality traits are key to labor market success, and that if a photo can uncover personality, it could be equally important to other factors on a resume.The reason we think it matters is when first companies are looking to hire, the key thing theyre looking at is education, or GPA and standardized test scores sometimes, she said. So, then, what were saying is our personality measures is in the same ballpark as those other measures or variables for how much they predict career success.The study also highlights that individual pay varies widely, and factors like race or education explain only a small portion of this variation. For example, while education matters for income, it doesnt account for much of the variation in pay, which also includes experience and proficiency.Another way of looking at it, Shue said, is among people with say 12 years of education, theres still huge variations in income within that group.The study also drew from previous research conducted on how personality traits could be revealed through an analysis of someones face. For example, a 2020 paper published in the scientific journal Nature noted a growing number of researchers had shown a link between facial images and the Big Five personality traits.Other follow-on studies revealed how facial recognition technology could pick up on a persons political affiliations through a facial image. That study used more than one million images to predict their political orientation by comparing their similarity to faces of liberals and conservatives.Political orientation was correctly classified in 72% of liberalconservative face pairs, remarkably better than chance (50%), human accuracy (55%), or one afforded by a 100-item personality questionnaire (66%), the study published in Nature revealed.The newest study focused on four main objectives:Human Capital: Cognitive skills and personality traits are crucial for labor market success, but scaling personality measurement is challenging.Methodology: Researchers developed Photo Big 5, extracting personality traits from facial images of 96,000 MBA graduates, with strong predictive value for career outcomes.Predictive Power: The Photo Big 5 predicts school rank, compensation, seniority, industry choice, job transitions, and career growth, with modest links to GPA.Ethics: The method improves accessibility and resists manipulation, but raises concerns about discrimination and autonomy.A subsection of the study also cites literature about how a persons facial image can uncover someones genetic makeup or even how pre-natal environment can contribute to personality.Genetics, Shue said, can explain 30% to 60% of the variation in personality across individuals. Theres also research showing early childhood hormone exposure affects personality and how people look.So, then, I dont think theres a stretch to say theres a strong genetic as well as environmental component to how we look, theres a strong genetic-environmental component to our personality, she said.