Emotion Recognition Systems Could Be Used In Job Interviews (techtarget.com) 145
dcblogs writes:
Emotion recognition software identifies micro-expressions through video analysis. These are expressions that may be as fast as 1/25 of a second and invisible to the human eye, but a close analysis of video can detect them. These systems are being used in marketing research, but some employers may be interested in using them to assess job candidates.
Vendors claim these systems can be used to develop a personality profile and discover a good cultural fit. The technology raises concerns, illustrated earlier this year who showed that face-reading technology could use photographs to determine sexual orientation with a high degree of accuracy.
One company has already added face recognition into their iPad-based time clock, which the company's CEO thinks could be adapted to also detect an employee's mood when they're clocking out. Yet even he has his reservations. While he thinks it could provide more accurate feedback from employees, he also admits that "There's something very Big Brother about it."
Vendors claim these systems can be used to develop a personality profile and discover a good cultural fit. The technology raises concerns, illustrated earlier this year who showed that face-reading technology could use photographs to determine sexual orientation with a high degree of accuracy.
One company has already added face recognition into their iPad-based time clock, which the company's CEO thinks could be adapted to also detect an employee's mood when they're clocking out. Yet even he has his reservations. While he thinks it could provide more accurate feedback from employees, he also admits that "There's something very Big Brother about it."
Finally! (Score:4, Funny)
A real use for those Botox injections.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
A real use for those Botox injections.
Hey, be nice!
It's the only thing Nancy Pelosi has ever been ahead of the curve on that didn't cost US citizens money or freedom!
Re: Awesome (Score:2, Insightful)
I think this shit is hilarious. It's almost like a contest how much humiliating bullshit will people go through to work at these so-called "prestigious" companies.
Personally I would not want to be surrounded by people who eagerly pass these "tests", and I'm okay with the fact that these jobs are not for me.
Fake it til Big Brother realizes its fake! (Score:2)
Re:Fake it til Big Brother realizes its fake! (Score:4, Insightful)
There used to be a box, sold sometimes in kit form, that detected micro-tremors in your voice. Some believe that the microtremors, mostly sub-audible, were a sign of deception. There were phone-attachments for them, too. It didn't even take a computer to detect these tremors, or for the device to be thought of as a lie detector.
This was thirty years ago. This is nothing new. Facial recognition is the same way-- finding twitching muscles could be a toothache or a rebuke. Pick one.
Re:Fake it til Big Brother realizes its fake! (Score:5, Insightful)
Sound's like a management wet dream. I have a better idea, we put management through one of these detectors every morning. If their attitude isn't one of helpfulness to employees, they get sent home with no pay for the day. We'll test them regularly through the day as well just to make sure the attitude is constant.
Re: (Score:3)
You mean 1984 is here?
Why bother when you can buy a prospective candidate's browser history, and typify him/her/whatever against various desirable/undesirable profiles/? Why not have a bot do it and save yourself time?
"Siri/Cortana/Alexa, dig up the dirt on social security #504-22-5555. Map profile against StockDesirable#11442. Grade. Display."
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The time clock that can match home browser logs to a face is extra to rent.
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Everyone with anxiety issues shall be made permanently unemployed by this technology.
Seriously? (Score:1)
MAYBE just MAYBE you could try to argue that it would allow you to detect a candidate who is full of it, but this idea overall sounds like a legal nightmare.
Re: (Score:2)
Well, beats listening to racists like you dismissing racism.
Re:yeay. (Score:4, Insightful)
I may only be 50 (or will be the 20th of next month), but even I can remember when the biggest qualifications for getting hired were a desire to work and either an aptitude for the job or willingness to be quickly trained and brought up to speed for the tasks.
Re: (Score:2)
I need to work!! In fact I just need the money.
I don't interview for enthusiasm to work for a living. I want to hire people though that want to work for a living with me, helping my company, rather than somewhere else (or anywhere).
I could earn a good living at most companies in the country. I don't want to work at most of them. I can articulate easily why I would prefer to work for any potential employer than their competition or other local companies. That's where the enthusiasm and interest comes in.
Working for a living isn't great, but given that's
Even more psychopaths in corporations, then (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing psychopaths are great at, is simulating emotions. The rest of us get nervous and stumble under certain pressures. Not psychopaths. They will have an even greater advantage if such software is utilized for recruiting.
Re: (Score:2)
So? Do you have any evidence that psychopaths make worse employees? For many jobs, moral and ethical qualms can be a major impediment to performance.
As the old saying goes: "Never hire a salesman that you'd want your daughter to marry."
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
The company I work for has a psychopath as a CEO/President.
Besides me hating being in the same room as him (that fake smile, that he points out any sign of weakness or simple guffaws like dropping something on the floor or having a food intolerance, and he specifically draws out shy people to put them on the spot). Oh, and I suppose he performed accounting tricks to overvalue the company when it changed equity group hands.
Naturally the new equity owners want these impossible profit margins, something about
Re:Even more psychopaths in corporations, then (Score:5, Insightful)
The company I work for has a psychopath as a CEO/President.
Just because you don't like the guy doesn't mean he isn't an effective CEO. Being effective is not the same as being popular.
Psychopaths often make better leaders [economist.com] because they can ignore the emotions, look at the big picture, and make clear utilitarian decisions. This is especially true for military leadership, where a callous and aggressive push for victory will often result in far fewer casualties than cautious dithering.
Re: (Score:2)
The impression I get from AC is that he's not a good CEO. He managed to get the company into real trouble. The equity group wants impossible profit margins, and they will put a lot of pressure on the company. In the meantime, people who can get another job are likely to, and their positions won't be filled, so the staff will steadily become less effective.
Eliminating R&D can make this quarter's profit margins look better, but it will likely kill or cripple the company in a few years. Most compani
Re: (Score:2)
So? Do you have any evidence that psychopaths make worse employees? For many jobs, moral and ethical qualms can be a major impediment to performance.
As the old saying goes: "Never hire a salesman that you'd want your daughter to marry."
Would you want to work for such people? I have and one of them almost succeeded in getting me fired when I asked HR for an investigation. It turns out he called security and claimed I did an authorized investigation and I was not a lawyer to do so and CCed the chief legal officer.
He kept his job, I got a write up initially and was about ready to be shown the door when I explained I wanted to see if he was stealing and asked security simply to check the videos on that day to our back room YIKES!
They eventual
Re: (Score:2)
I wanted to see if he was stealing and asked security simply to check the videos
How to avoid damaging your career: Always tread very carefully on matters like these. Most companies (certainly ones with over a thousand employees) will have a process that can be followed, and/or whistleblower hotlines.
Use these. Stick strictly to them, always approach it from, "I'm concerned the company may be at risk here" and never mention personalities or personal impacts, and always plan carefully before doing or saying anything.
It's an odd thing but companies and managers will always tell you they w
Re: (Score:2)
If anything the computer would be more likely to catch them.
Why? By definition, they don't have the same emotional responses as normal people*. So there would be nothing to detect. Or the wrong thing. A guy might be happy about being shafted by the boss because he's on his way out to his truck to fetch his 12 gauge.
*I'd like to see some tests of this technology conducted on people with various diagnosed personality disorders. If it can pick them out of a crowd it could keep them out of the workplace**.
**Why hasn't anyone from marketing come in this morning?
Re: (Score:3)
they'd see that someone wasn't matching up with the normal baseline
Maybe not. That's what makes psychopaths very difficult to detect in day to day interactions. They are very good at matching up with normal baselines. It's one reason they are difficult to catch with lie detectors.
The question is whether micro-expressions go beyond the characteristics measured by lie detectors in that even a psychopath can't control them. There are tricks that normal people can be trained to fool the machines. Such as messing with the baseline b.p. heart rate and respiration. But that is p
Re: (Score:3)
No kidding.
I just got turned down from a job failing a background check. It turns out I worked for a project with CompuCom 6 years ago but totally forget another headhunter brought me in. So the name of the 2 contracting companies got reversed ... and I was off by 2 months since it was awhile back.
The employer assumed I lied for 2 years on 2 different occasions. It pissed me off as when I got the offer before it was rescinded I turned down 2 other employers and waiting for over a month.
To make matters worse
Don't even go their. (Score:2)
If you tell me I am tormenting a turtle, I am likely to punch you in the face.
Re: (Score:2)
Isn't the standard practice to bluff through that question then react somewhat more strongly when he asks you to tell him about your mother?
I Love A Little Voight-Kampff In A Job Interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: I Love A Little Voight-Kampff In A Job Intervi (Score:5, Funny)
Oh, so close! The correct answer was "roll onto your back and let Bill torture you when he's ready"
Re: (Score:2)
Working for "move fast and break things" companies can work, provided your superiors are aware that you're going to break things and not blame you for them.
Oh great! (Score:1)
The thing it will detect 99% of the time is people being nervous.
Clocking out? (Score:5, Informative)
"One company has already added face recognition into their iPad-based time clock, which the company's CEO thinks could be adapted to also detect an employee's mood when they're clocking out"
Shouldn't they be a bit more concerned about their mood while clocking in?
Re: (Score:2)
If they're annoyed when clocking out, it's probably a sign of low job satisfaction...
And if they're annoyed while clocking in they just might say fuck it and "rm -rf /."
Re: (Score:2)
Three unemployed men find themselves in the same bar in an American town. They ask each other why they lost their jobs.
The first unemployed man says that he used to arrive at work everyday looking sad. He was fired for wanting to start a union.
The second unemployed man says that he used drive to work looking happy everyday. He was fired for accepting a bribe.
The third unemployed man says, "I used to walk into work looking t
Big Brother is watching (Score:2)
"There's something very Big Brother about it"...
Yeah, no shit. Seriously, people?
A better application: use this in MMOs to shape the current expression of your avatar. Another idea: use to auto-select emoji in messaging apps on request. Yet another application might be when doing in-house beta software testing. Testers are often recorded in an attempt to gauge reaction to the software they're using. Detecting emotion might be very helpful here, and in fact, less intrusive than the typical "keep talking
Re: (Score:2)
That statement is a euphemism. It's more like Big Brother's wet dream.
welcome to the future, rad times! (Score:1)
Is this testing whether I'm a replicant or a lesbian, Mr. Deckard?
what's a tortoise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: what's a tortoise? (Score:2)
A tortoise is a kind of large sailing yacht, usually equipped with an avocado-powered diesel teapot. You didn't know that??
I'd like to think it'd be as an objective measure (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
"Hire-Vue" does this (Score:5, Interesting)
Hire-Vue's schtick seems to be that their mysterious proprietary algorithm does magical "machine learning" analysis of your face and voice in the video answers it took, then it generates a magical "insight score" to tell the HR people whether or not you suck, along with how "confident" and "enthusiastic" and who knows how many other attributes Hire-Vue thinks it can detect (seems to also be special proprietary information, so I don't even really know what it was looking for.) I expect most people get marked down for not making "eye contact" with the webcam (rather than looking at the "person" - i.e. your own live video - on the screen like a normal human being.)
I will say that the process was more fun than I expected, but I'm not at all confident that Hire-Vue's robot won't sabotage my attempt to find gainful employment.
Also note that this format just coincidentally makes it easy to conveniently get an idea of whether you're "old", what your racial background and gender may be, etc., so if they are so inclined, HR can conveniently throw out your application if there's something there that they don't feel like talking to.
It's only been a week, so no idea yet how it went. Job-hunting these days is itself one of the worst jobs right now.
Re: (Score:2)
Well did you get the job?
I have been on many interviews and these are far from fun and I find them insulting and demeaning to desperate candidates who just want to work and have to jump thru hoops and be walked and weeded like cattle. I typically find companies who do this are old fashioned and have a terrible and power hungry HR department and do not have high regard to employees and assume we are all just black boxes.
So what if you are not the most confident or pause with an odd question? That does not me
Re:"Hire-Vue" does this (Score:4, Informative)
There have been interviews where about a half hour in, I decided I would rather starve than work there.
After that, it was all about fucking with them. Times already wasted, might as well make something of it.
Re: (Score:2)
There have been interviews where about a half hour in, I decided I would rather starve than work there.
After that, it was all about fucking with them. Times already wasted, might as well make something of it.
Be careful what you wish for my friend.
But yes the point of the interview should be a 2 way meeting, but when you have no job you have little options. What really gets me also is those stupid Taleo Applicant tracking systems that can take well over 1 hour to fill out only to never hear back. HR LOVES these as the program does the recuiting for them.
Many big companies have updated them not to be so soulless or use LinkedIn now to respect the applicants time more. I think after reading this and seeing the stu
Re: (Score:2)
The best time to look for a job, is when you've already got one. Than you can just laugh about the bad ones, recreate 'Monty Python' skits ('Management trainee interview') in the HR office.
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After that, it was all about fucking with them. Times already wasted, might as well make something of it.
That sounds like fun. Any stories?
I wonder what would happen if you manipulated your appearance to try to fool this device? Maybe draw two dots below my eyes to confuse the algorithm.
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks for the warning. If I get wind of one of these machine-interviews as I search for a new role, I now know to cancel the application at the outset. Use of such technology tells me one thing for clear, which is that HR is completely inept AND corrupted and that the company culture is incompatible with my employment.
I'd rather flip burgers than give the machine extra data, which could effectively short-circuit EVERY job application I make in the future. Once they have that "data", they can sell it how th
Gesture Recognition (Score:2)
Voigt-Kampff machine (Score:3)
The dark side of automation bites back (Score:2)
White House (Score:2)
good cultural fit (Score:2)
doesnt mean much, some of the people that grate my cheese are some of the best people in their jobs, most of the people that fit in well with everyone else are functionally useless
I mean its cool I can talk star trek over lunch, but I needed that dwg like 2 weeks ago and I just sent it to your dumb ass for the 3rd time cause its garbage
Summary Report (Score:5, Funny)
Candidate 1: Nervous
Candidate 2: Nervous
Candidate 3: Nervous
Candidate 4: Calm, but high
my interview would go something like this... (Score:1)
As if job interview didn't suck hard enough ... (Score:2, Informative)
Seriously, make it easier to get people hired not harder.
This is terrible! (Score:2)
What will happen to me if they discover I'm really a malfunctioning smart blender?! ;)
Re: Impossible (Score:2)
The know-nothing power-mad culture of American HR departments is one of the many reasons China is beating us at absolutely everything.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm pretty sure China is beating us where they are beating us (which I believe is not everything) is because they have a nation with a national IQ of about 105 and staying there as immigrants must be returning Chinese nationals or people with enough intelligence and money that they will not be a burden on the state. In the USA we've got a national IQ of about 98 and we'll let any fucker stay in that can jump the border and have a kid before getting caught.
I don't care what anyone says, these people are not
Re: Just say no (Score:2)
They won't hire you to cut grass.
The jobs done by the illegal immigrant servant class are not open to citizens, even citizens willing to work for a pittance. That's how the California Apartheid system works.
Re: Wat (Score:2)
The purpose is discrimination. Duh.
Why would it just be for the interview? (Score:2)
The point of a computerized system is scale. I.e., the bot would be monitoring your displayed emotion every second of the day.
Crazy? When you're distinguishing your commodity through affective labor (a Pret a Manger [newrepublic.com]), it almost seems inevitable.
Big brother is fine... everyone says so! (Score:2)
Excellent! (Score:3)
Marketing hype? (Score:4, Informative)
Different people express emotions differently. That's why it's so hard to guess what someone is feeling.
For example, for some people, pausing before responding to a question means they don't know the answer, for others, it means that the person is carefully considering the nuances of a response.
In order to properly understand expressions, context is key. This is true of understanding spoken language as well. Computers are getting pretty good at understanding spoken language, but certainly not better than humans themselves. My guess is that this will be true of understanding emotions for some time.
All this leads me to believe that this is, at least in part, marketing hype.
A use for my TENS unit (Score:1)
Interview questions (Score:1)
You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a user, it's crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the user over on its back. The user lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't, not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that?
Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind about your mother.
with apologies to
http://www.allthetests.com/qui... [allthetests.com]
How can it not know what it is? (Score:2)
Q: You look up and you see a programmable relative cursor on a Cartesian plane...
A: What's that?
Q: Know what a LOGO turtle is?
A: I've never seen a turtle -- But I understand what you mean.
Q: Same thing.
A: Do you make up these questions, Mr. Holden, or do they write them down for you?
Q: You're watching some source code scroll by. Suddenly you realize there's a bug...
A: I'd kill it.
Q: You're surfing a StackOverflow and you come across a flaming fullpage answer utilizing Common
Re: (Score:2)
This deserves to be modded up.
Well done.
likely illegal in the UK (Score:2)
This would almost certainly discriminate against protected groups - e.g. people with learning disabilities such as Aspergers.
I kinda get nervous when I take tests (Score:1)
Cue obligatory Monty Python skit (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Who are "they"?
I remember taking a test for an electrician apprenticeship. They didn't test anything on knowledge of electrical code or Ohm's law. I remember reading an interesting story on the history of road building and having to answer questions about it. I think there was a pattern match portion and a mathematics portion but I don't remember them as well. It was an intelligence test, no doubt.
I took an intelligence test for the US Army, called the ASVAB or AFQT, scored in the 99th percentile too.
Re: (Score:2)
Stefan Molyneaux (I think that's how it's spelled) had a series of videos on this a year or three ago. He's had a few more since. The best one in the last few months was with Dr. Jordan Peterson (also not sure on spelling).
I keep hearing about "Flynn Effect" when IQ comes up so I rewatched some interviews Stef did with Dr. James Flynn and some of his supporters and detractors. Even Dr. Flynn admits that there is a genetic limit to intelligence and that the testing we have is highly accurate across cultur