最了解你的不是另一半 而是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)

來源：數(shù)據(jù)觀 時(shí)間：2019-03-28 14:11:36 作者：Frank Luerweg

The Internet Knows You Better Than Your Spouse Does

數(shù)據(jù)觀丨王婕（譯）

The traces we leave on the Web and on our digital devices can give advertisers and others surprising, and sometimes disturbing, insights into our psychology.

我們?cè)诰W(wǎng)絡(luò)和電子設(shè)備上留下的（信息）痕跡，可能會(huì)讓廣告商們和其他人趁機(jī)而入洞察我們的內(nèi)心，這種行為讓人始料不及，有時(shí)候甚至滿心惶恐。

圖片來源：Laurence Dutton?Getty Images

IN BRIEF

內(nèi)容提要

·Users’digital footprints disclose certain preferences and characteristics, such as their personality or mood.

·用戶的數(shù)字足跡揭示了一定的偏好和特征，比如他們的個(gè)性或情緒。

·Companies are very interested in such data. Automated language analysis is already being used in the hiring of personnel. And advertising seems to be more successful when its message is adapted to the personality or mood of the customer.

·許多公司對(duì)這些數(shù)據(jù)非常感興趣。自動(dòng)化語言分析已經(jīng)被用于雇用人員。當(dāng)廣告信息與受眾者個(gè)性或情緒相匹配時(shí)，廣告似乎更有效。

·These technological advances open opportunities not only for commerce but for public health. Among those possibilities: smartphone apps may in the future recognize when a bipolar patient is slipping into a depressive phase and can inform the person’s physician.

·這些技術(shù)上的進(jìn)步不僅為商業(yè)，還為公共健康創(chuàng)造了機(jī)會(huì)。這些可能性包括：未來，智能手機(jī)應(yīng)用程序可能會(huì)識(shí)別出雙向情感障礙患者何時(shí)進(jìn)入抑郁階段，并及時(shí)通知患者的主治醫(yī)生。

·But the technology poses risks. Unless it is managed carefully and ethically, it can invade privacy.

·但這項(xiàng)技術(shù)也存在風(fēng)險(xiǎn)：除非它被小心地，合乎道德地管理，否則它可能會(huì)對(duì)個(gè)人隱私造成侵犯。

If you enjoy computerized personality tests, you might consider visiting Apply Magic Sauce (http://www.21jieyan.cn). The Web site prompts you to enter some text you have written—such as e-mails or blogs—along with information about your activities on social media. You do not have to provide social media data, but if you want to do it, you either allow Apply Magic Sauce to access your Facebook and Twitter accounts or follow directions for uploading selected data from those sources, such as your history of pressing Facebook’s “l(fā)ike” buttons. Once you click “Make Prediction,” you will see a detailed psychogram, or personality profile, that includes your presumed age and sex, whether you are anxious or easily stressed, how quickly you give in to impulses, and whether you are politically and socially conservative or liberal.

如果你對(duì)線上性格測(cè)試感興趣，可以試著訪問Apply Magic Sauce（由劍橋大學(xué)開發(fā)的知名個(gè)性化分析引擎，地址：http://www.21jieyan.cn)。該網(wǎng)站會(huì)提示你輸入一些你寫過的文字——比如電子郵件或博客——以及你在社交媒體上的狀態(tài)信息。你不需要提供社交媒體數(shù)據(jù)，但如果你想這么做，你要么允許Apply Magic Sauce訪問你的Facebook和Twitter賬戶，要么按照指示從這些來源上傳選定的數(shù)據(jù)，比如你在Facebook上點(diǎn)贊的歷史。一旦點(diǎn)擊“做出預(yù)測(cè)”，你就會(huì)看到一個(gè)詳細(xì)的心理記錄表或者是個(gè)性簡(jiǎn)介，包括你的預(yù)判年齡和性別，你是焦慮還是易緊張，你在失去理智情況下做出沖動(dòng)行為的速度，你在政治和社會(huì)上是保守派還是自由派……

Examining the psychological profile that the algorithm derives from your online traces can certainly be entertaining. On the other hand, the algorithm’s ability to draw inferences about us illustrates how easy it is for anyone who tracks our digital activities to gain insight into our personalities—and potentially invade our privacy. What is more, psychological inferences about us might be exploited to manipulate, say, what we buy or how we vote.

研究該算法從在線信息痕跡中得出的“心理檔案”，想必一定很有趣。另一方面，該算法對(duì)我們做出推斷的能力也恰恰說明，任何人都能輕而易舉地通過追蹤“數(shù)字活動(dòng)”從而獲取我們的個(gè)性信息——而且很有可能侵犯我們的隱私。更重要的是，基于對(duì)這種心理推斷的利用，我們的行為很有可能被操縱，比如，我們買什么或者我們的投票意向。

SURPRISING ACCURACY

驚人的準(zhǔn)確度

It seems that our like clicks by themselves can be pretty good indicators of what makes us tick. In 2015 David Stillwell and Youyou Wu, both at the University of Cambridge, and Michal Kosinski of Stanford University demonstrated that algorithms can evaluate what psychologists call the Big Five dimensions of personality quite accurately just by examining a Facebook user’s likes. These dimensions—openness to experience, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness and neuroticism—are viewed as representing the basic dimensions of personality. The degree to which they are present in individuals describes who those people are.

似乎點(diǎn)贊這一行為本身就能很好地表明是什么驅(qū)使我們“點(diǎn)贊”。2015年，劍橋大學(xué)的戴維?斯蒂威爾(David Stillwell)和吳友友( Youyou Wu)，以及斯坦福大學(xué)的米哈爾?科辛斯基(Michal Kosinski)證明，算法可以通過檢測(cè)Facebook用戶的點(diǎn)贊來準(zhǔn)確評(píng)估心理學(xué)家所說的“五大人格論”，即開放性、責(zé)任心、外傾性、親和性和神經(jīng)質(zhì)，通過這些人格特征在個(gè)體中的表現(xiàn)程度可以描述他（她）是什么樣的人。

The researchers trained their algorithm using data from more than 70,000 Facebook users. All the participants had earlier filled out a personality questionnaire, and so their Big Five profile was known. The computer then went through the Facebook accounts of these test subjects looking for likes that are often associated with certain personality characteristics. For example, extroverted users often give a thumbs-up to activities such as “partying” or “dancing.” Users who are especially open may like Spanish painter Salvador Dalí.

研究人員使用來自7萬多名Facebook用戶的數(shù)據(jù)訓(xùn)練他們的算法，這些參與者在此前都填寫了一份性格問卷，所以他們的五大性格檔案是已知的。隨后，電腦程序開始瀏覽這些測(cè)試對(duì)象的Facebook賬戶，并尋找與某些性格特征相關(guān)的“點(diǎn)贊”。例如，外傾性的用戶經(jīng)常對(duì)諸如“聚會(huì)”或“跳舞”之類的活動(dòng)點(diǎn)贊，而開放性的用戶可能會(huì)喜歡西班牙畫家薩爾瓦多·達(dá)利。(Salvador Dali，著名的西班牙加泰羅尼亞畫家，因?yàn)槠涑F(xiàn)實(shí)主義作品而聞名。)

Then the investigators had the program examine the likes of other Facebook users. If the software had as few as 10 for analysis, it was able to evaluate that person about as well as a co-worker did. Given 70 likes, the algorithm was about as accurate as a friend. With 300, it was more successful than the person’s spouse. Even more astonishing to the researchers, feeding likes into their program enabled them to predict whether someone suffered from depression or took drugs and even to infer what the individual studied in school.

緊接著，調(diào)查人員讓程序檢測(cè)其他Facebook用戶的喜好。如果利用社交軟件上的10個(gè)贊用于分析，程序就能像同事一樣評(píng)估這個(gè)人；如果有70個(gè)贊，這個(gè)算法的評(píng)估結(jié)果就會(huì)像朋友一樣準(zhǔn)確；一旦有300個(gè)贊時(shí)，評(píng)估結(jié)果將比你的另一半更了解你。更讓研究人員震驚的是，在程序中錄入更多點(diǎn)贊的狀態(tài)，可以讓算法推斷出某人是否患有抑郁癥或服用藥物，甚至可以判斷出這個(gè)人在學(xué)校學(xué)習(xí)的內(nèi)容。

The project grew out of work that Stillwell began in 2007, when he created a Facebook app that enabled users to fill out a personality questionnaire and get feedback in exchange for allowing investigators to use the data for research. Six million people participated until the app was shut down in 2012, and about 40 percent gave permission for the researchers to obtain access to their past Facebook activities—including their history of likes.

這個(gè)項(xiàng)目起源于斯蒂威爾2007年開始的工作，當(dāng)時(shí)他創(chuàng)建了一個(gè)Facebook應(yīng)用程序，旨在收集用戶的性格問卷，調(diào)查人員可以使用這些數(shù)據(jù)進(jìn)行研究，同時(shí)提供問卷結(jié)果給用戶作為使用數(shù)據(jù)的交換。在2012年，該應(yīng)用程序被關(guān)閉之前，已經(jīng)有600萬人參與其中，其中約40%的人允許研究人員訪問他們過去在Facebook上的活動(dòng)，包括他們的點(diǎn)贊歷史。

Researchers around the world became very interested in the data set, parts of which were made available in anonymized form for noncommercial research. More than 50 articles and doctoral dissertations have been based on it, in part because the Facebook data reveal what people actually do when they are unaware that their behavior is the subject of research.

世界各地的研究人員都對(duì)這些數(shù)據(jù)集產(chǎn)生了濃厚的興趣，其中部分?jǐn)?shù)據(jù)集以匿名形式貢獻(xiàn)給了非商業(yè)性研究。超過50篇文章以及博士論文都是基于該研究形成的，一部分原因在于，F(xiàn)acebook的數(shù)據(jù)表明，人們?cè)跊]有意識(shí)到自己已成為研究對(duì)象的情況下產(chǎn)生了這些實(shí)際行為。

COMMERCIAL APPLICATIONS

商業(yè)應(yīng)用

One obvious use for such psychological insights beyond the realm of research is in advertising, as Sandra C. Matz of Columbia University and her colleagues (among them Stillwell and Kosinski) demonstrated in a 2017 paper. The team made use of something that Facebook offers to its business customers: the ability to target advertisements to people with particular likes. They developed 10 different ads for the same cosmetic product, some meant to appeal to extroverted women and some to introverts. One of the “extrovert” ads, for example, showed a woman dancing with abandon at a disco; underneath it the slogan read, “Dance like no one’s watching (but they totally are).” An “introvert” ad showed a young woman applying makeup in front of a mirror. The slogan said, “Beauty doesn’t have to shout.”

哥倫比亞大學(xué)的桑德拉 C.馬茨(Sandra C. Matz)和她的同事(其中包括斯蒂威爾和科辛斯基)在2017年的一篇論文中闡述，這種心理學(xué)洞見在研究領(lǐng)域之外的一個(gè)明顯用途是廣告。該團(tuán)隊(duì)利用Facebook向其商業(yè)客戶提供的一項(xiàng)功能：廣告的精準(zhǔn)投放。他們?yōu)橥环N化妝品制作了10個(gè)不同的廣告，其中一些旨在吸引外向的女性，另一些則是為了吸引內(nèi)向的女性。例如，其中一則“外向者”廣告中，一位女士在迪斯科舞廳縱情舞蹈，下面的標(biāo)語寫著：“孤芳自舞（然眾觀之）?！痹谝粍t“內(nèi)向者”的廣告中，一位年輕女子在鏡子前化妝，標(biāo)語上則寫著：“美不名狀。”

Both campaigns ran on Facebook for a week and together reached about three million female Facebook users, who received messages that were matched to their personality type or to the opposite of their type. When the ads fit the personality, Facebook viewers were about 50 percent more likely to buy the product than when the ads did not fit.

兩項(xiàng)活動(dòng)都在Facebook上進(jìn)行了一周，總共送達(dá)了約300萬名女性Facebook用戶，她們收到的信息要么與自己的性格類型相匹配，要么與自己的性格類型相反。當(dāng)廣告類型與用戶個(gè)性相匹配時(shí)，F(xiàn)acebook用戶購(gòu)買該產(chǎn)品的可能性比不符合情況下購(gòu)買該產(chǎn)品的可能性高出約50%。

Advertisers often pursue a different approach: they look for customers who have bought or liked a particular product in the past to ensure that they target people who are already well disposed to their wares. In limiting a target group, it makes sense to take previous consumption into account, Matz says, but this study demonstrated the power of adapting how the message is communicated to a consumer’s personality.

廣告商通常采取與之不同的方法：他們尋找過去購(gòu)買或喜歡某一特定產(chǎn)品的客戶，以確保他們的目標(biāo)客戶對(duì)他們的產(chǎn)品頗有好感。馬茨認(rèn)為，在限定目標(biāo)群體時(shí)，將其之前的消費(fèi)行為納入考慮范圍是有意義的，但這項(xiàng)研究也證明了信息表達(dá)方式契合消費(fèi)者個(gè)性的重要性。

It is a power not lost on marketers. Numerous companies have discovered automated personality analysis and turned it into a business model, boasting about the value it can provide to their customers—although how well the methods used by any individual company actually work is hard to judge.

這是市場(chǎng)營(yíng)銷人員不可或缺的能力（信息表達(dá)方式要契合消費(fèi)者）。許多公司都已經(jīng)發(fā)掘了自動(dòng)化的個(gè)性分析，并將其轉(zhuǎn)化為一種商業(yè)模式，吹噓它能為客戶提供的價(jià)值——盡管我們很難判斷任何一家公司使用這種方法的實(shí)際效果如何。

The now defunct Cambridge Analytica offers an infamous example of how personality profiling based on Facebook data has been applied in the real world. In March 2018 news reports alleged that as early as 2014, the company had begun buying personal Facebook data about more than 80 million users. (Stillwell’s group makes a point of emphasizing that Cambridge Analytica had no access to its data, algorithms or expertise.) The company claimed to specialize in personalized election advertising: the packaging and pinpoint targeting of political messages. In 2016 Alexander Nix, then the company’s CEO, described Cambridge Analytica’s strategy in a presentation in New York City, providing an example of how to convince people who care about gun rights to support a selected candidate. (See a YouTube video of his talk at www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc.) For voters deemed neurotic (who are prone to worrying), Nix proposed an emotionally based campaign featuring the threat of a burglary and the protective value of a gun. For agreeable people (who value community and family), on the other hand, the approach could feature fathers teaching their sons to hunt.

已倒閉的劍橋分析公司（Cambridge Analytica）就是一個(gè)臭名昭著的例子，這個(gè)案例展現(xiàn)了基于Facebook數(shù)據(jù)的個(gè)性分析如何在現(xiàn)實(shí)世界中得到應(yīng)用。2018年3月的新聞報(bào)道稱，早在2014年，該公司就開始購(gòu)買約8000多萬用戶的Facebook個(gè)人數(shù)據(jù)（斯蒂威爾的團(tuán)隊(duì)強(qiáng)調(diào)，劍橋分析公司無法獲得其數(shù)據(jù)、算法或?qū)I(yè)技術(shù)）。該公司聲稱其專注于個(gè)性化選舉廣告，即政治信息的包裝和精確定位。2016年，時(shí)任公司首席執(zhí)行官的亞歷山大?尼克斯（Alexander Nix）在紐約的一次演講中描述了劍橋分析公司的戰(zhàn)略并列舉了一個(gè)例子，以說明他們?nèi)绾握f服關(guān)心槍支權(quán)利的人去支持特定候選人。（在YouTube網(wǎng)站上可以看到他的演講視頻：www.youtube.com/watch?v=n8Dd5aVXLCc）對(duì)于那些被認(rèn)為是神經(jīng)質(zhì)（容易焦慮）的選民，尼克斯提出了一個(gè)基于情感的競(jìng)選方案，這一方案以宣傳盜竊威脅論和槍支自保論為特點(diǎn)。另一方面，對(duì)于那些平易近人（重視社區(qū)和家庭）的人來說，這一宣傳的側(cè)重可能是父親教兒子打獵。

Cambridge Analytica worked for the presidential campaigns of Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. Nix claimed in his talk that the strategy helped Cruz advance in the primaries, and the company later took some credit for Trump’s victory—although exactly what it did for the Trump campaign and how valuable its work was are in dispute.

劍橋分析公司曾參加特德·克魯茲（美國(guó)得克薩斯州聯(lián)邦參議員，現(xiàn)任NASA委員會(huì)主席。2015年5月，通過推特宣布將參加2016年美國(guó)總統(tǒng)大選。2016年5月4日，克魯茲宣布退選。）和唐納德·特朗普的總統(tǒng)競(jìng)選工作。尼克斯在他的演講中聲稱，該策略曾幫助克魯茲在初選中取得進(jìn)展，并將特朗普的勝利歸功于該公司——盡管存在著爭(zhēng)議：它究竟為特朗普的競(jìng)選活動(dòng)做了什么鋪墊，這項(xiàng)工作的價(jià)值是什么？

Philosopher Philipp Hübl, who, among other things, examines the power of the unconscious, is dubious of the Trump claim. He notes that selling cosmetics costing a few dollars, as in Matz’s study, is very different from swaying voters in an election campaign. “In elections, even undecided voters weigh the possibilities, and it takes more than a few banner ads and fake news to convince them,” Hübl says.

哲學(xué)家菲利普·休伯（Philipp Hubl）對(duì)特朗普的說法持懷疑態(tài)度。休伯研究了諸如無意識(shí)力量等問題，他指出，在馬茨的研究中，向消費(fèi)者兜售幾美元的化妝品和在競(jìng)選活動(dòng)中搖擺不定的選民是非常不同的。休伯表示：“在選舉中，即使是猶豫不決的選民也會(huì)權(quán)衡各種可能性，要說服他們，不只是幾條橫幅廣告和假新聞那么簡(jiǎn)單?！?/p>

Matz, too, sees limits in what psychological marketing in its current stage of development can accomplish in political campaigns. “Undecided voters in particular may be made more receptive to one or another position,” she says, “but turning a Clintonista into a MAGA voter, well, that was pretty unlikely to happen.” Nevertheless, Matz thinks that such marketing is likely to have some effect on voters, calling the notion that it has no effect “extremely improbable.”

馬茨也看到了當(dāng)前發(fā)展階段心理營(yíng)銷在政治競(jìng)選中所能達(dá)到的局限。她提到：“尤其是舉棋不定的選民，可能更容易接受一個(gè)或另一個(gè)候選人。但是把克林頓的支持者變成MAGA（指特朗普標(biāo)志性的“Make American Great Again”口號(hào)，這里代指特朗普）的選民，嗯......這是不太可能發(fā)生的?！辈贿^，馬茨認(rèn)為，這種營(yíng)銷還是會(huì)對(duì)選民產(chǎn)生一些影響，說這種營(yíng)銷沒有效果那是“極不可能的”。

BEYOND FACEBOOK

FACEBOOK之外

Facebook activity is by no means the only data that can be used to assess your personality. In a 2018 study, computer scientist Sabrina Hoppe of the University of Stuttgart in Germany and her colleagues fitted students with eye trackers. The volunteers then walked around campus and went shopping. Based on their eye movements, the researchers were able to predict four of the Big Five dimensions correctly.

在Facebook上的活動(dòng)軌跡絕不是唯一可以用來評(píng)估你個(gè)性的數(shù)據(jù)。在2018年的一項(xiàng)研究中，德國(guó)斯圖加特大學(xué)的計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家薩布麗娜·霍普(Sabrina Hoppe)和她的同事給學(xué)生們安裝了眼球追蹤器，然后讓志愿者們?cè)谛@里散步和購(gòu)物。根據(jù)他們的眼球運(yùn)動(dòng)，研究人員能夠準(zhǔn)確預(yù)測(cè)五大人格維度中的其中四個(gè)。

How we speak—our individual tone of voice—may also divulge clues about our personality. Precire Technologies, a company based in Aachen, Germany, specializes in analyzing spoken and written language. It has developed an automated job interview: job seekers speak with a computer by telephone, which then creates a detailed psychogram based on their responses. Among other things, Precire analyzes word selection and certain word combinations, sentence structures, dialectal influences, errors, filler words, pronunciations and intonations. Its algorithm is based on data from more than 5,000 interviews with individuals whose personalities were analyzed.

我們說話的方式以及我們個(gè)人的語調(diào)也可能透露關(guān)于性格的一些線索。Precire Technologies是一家總部位于德國(guó)亞琛的公司，專門從事口語和書面語言的分析。該公司開發(fā)了一種自動(dòng)化的求職面試方式：求職者在通話中與電腦交談，電腦根據(jù)他們的回答生成一份詳細(xì)的心理記錄。此外，Precire還分析了單詞的選擇，特定的單詞組合、句子結(jié)構(gòu)、方言影響、語句錯(cuò)誤、填充詞、發(fā)音和語調(diào)——這一算法是基于5000余名電話面試者的性格數(shù)據(jù)分析而形成的。

Precire’s clients include German company Fraport, which manages the Frankfurt Airport, and the international recruitment agency Randstad, which uses the software as a component of its selection process. Andreas Bolder, head of personnel at Randstad’s German branch, says the approach is more efficient and less costly than certain more time-consuming tests.

Precire的客戶包括管理法蘭克福機(jī)場(chǎng)的德國(guó)公司Fraport，以及國(guó)際招聘機(jī)構(gòu)Randstad。Randstad將該軟件作為其招聘流程的一個(gè)組成部分。Randstad德國(guó)分公司人事主管安德烈亞斯?博爾德（Andreas bold）表示，與某些耗時(shí)更長(zhǎng)的測(cè)試相比，這種方法效率更高，成本更低。

Software that analyzes faces for clues to mood, personality or other psychological features is being explored as well. It highlights both what is possible and what to fear.

研究人員還在開發(fā)一種可以通過分析面部表情來尋找情緒、性格或其他心理特征線索的軟件，它會(huì)強(qiáng)調(diào)可能情況或擔(dān)憂情況。

POSSIBILITIES AND PROBLEMS

可能性和問題

In early 2018 four programmers at a hacker conference, nwHacks, introduced an app that discerns mood by analyzing face-tracking data captured from the front camera of the iPhone X. The app, called Loki, recognizes emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and surprise in real time as someone looks at a news feed, and it delivers content based on the person’s emotional state. In an article about Loki, one of the developers said that he and his colleagues created the app to “illustrate the plausibility of social media platforms tracking user emotions to manipulate the content that gets shown to them.” For instance, when a user engages with a news feed or other app, such software could secretly track the person’s emotions and use this “emotion detector” as a guide for targeting advertising. Studies have shown that people tend to loosen their purse strings when they are in a good mood; advertisers might want to push ads to your phone when you are feeling particularly up.

2018年初，在一個(gè)名為nwHacks的黑客大會(huì)上（nwHacks是Northwest Hacks的縮寫，是在不列顛哥倫比亞大學(xué)舉辦的為期兩天的hackathon活動(dòng)），四個(gè)程序員介紹了一個(gè)通過iPhone x的前置攝像頭來捕捉面部追蹤數(shù)據(jù)并進(jìn)行分析來識(shí)別情緒的應(yīng)用程序——洛基（Loki）。例如通過對(duì)某人在閱讀推送新聞時(shí)或快樂，或悲傷，或憤怒，或驚喜等情緒的識(shí)別，為其推送符合這一情緒狀態(tài)的內(nèi)容。在一篇關(guān)于洛基的文章中，其中一名開發(fā)者說，他和他的同事開發(fā)這款應(yīng)用，是為了“證明社交媒體平臺(tái)追蹤用戶情緒、操縱推送給用戶內(nèi)容的可行性”。例如，當(dāng)用戶查看新聞推送或使用其他應(yīng)用程序時(shí)，此類軟件可以秘密跟蹤用戶的情緒，并使用這種“情緒探測(cè)器”作為定向廣告的指南。研究表明，人們?cè)谛那楹玫臅r(shí)候往往會(huì)放松錢包：因此當(dāng)你心情特別好的時(shí)候，廣告商可能會(huì)把廣告推送到你的手機(jī)上。

Astonishingly, Loki took just 24 hours to build. In making it, the developers relied on machine learning, a common approach to automated image recognition. They first trained the program with about 100 facial expressions, labeling the emotions that corresponded to each expression. This training enabled the app to “figure out” how facial expression relates to mood, such as, presumably, that the corners of the mouth rise when we smile.

令人驚訝的是，洛基只花了24小時(shí)就開發(fā)完成了。在制作過程中，開發(fā)人員依賴于機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)，這是一種自動(dòng)圖像識(shí)別的常用方法。他們首先用大約100個(gè)面部表情來訓(xùn)練程序，并標(biāo)記與每個(gè)表情對(duì)應(yīng)的情緒。這項(xiàng)訓(xùn)練使該應(yīng)用程序能夠“找出”面部表情與情緒之間的關(guān)系，比如，當(dāng)我們微笑時(shí)，嘴角可能會(huì)上揚(yáng)。

Kosinski, too, has examined whether automated image-recognition technology can surreptitiously discern psychological traits from digital activity. In an experiment published in 2018, he and his Stanford colleague Yilun Wang fed hundreds of thousands of photographs from a dating portal into a computer, along with information on whether the person in question was gay or straight. They then presented the software with pairs of unknown faces: one of a homosexual person and another of a heterosexual individual of the same sex. The program correctly distinguished the sexual orientation of men 81 percent of the time and of women 71 percent of the time; human beings were much less accurate in their assessments.

科辛斯基也對(duì)自動(dòng)圖像識(shí)別技術(shù)是否能從數(shù)字活動(dòng)中辨別出心理特征進(jìn)行了研究。在2018年發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)實(shí)驗(yàn)中，他和斯坦福大學(xué)的同事王一倫(Yilun Wang)將一個(gè)約會(huì)門戶網(wǎng)站上的數(shù)十萬張照片輸入電腦，并附上有關(guān)這個(gè)人是同性戀還是異性戀的信息。然后，他們向軟件展示了兩張陌生面孔:一個(gè)是同性戀者，另一個(gè)是同性別的異性戀者。該程序正確區(qū)分了81%的男性和71%的女性的性取向，相比之下人類的判斷就不那么準(zhǔn)確了。

Given that gay people continue to fear for their lives in many parts of the world, it is perhaps not surprising that the results elicited negative reactions. Indeed, Kosinski got death threats. “People didn’t understand that my intention wasn’t to show how cool it is to predict sexual orientation,” Kosinski says. “The whole paper is actually a warning, a call for increasing privacy.”

考慮到世界上許多地方的同性戀者仍在為自己的生活而擔(dān)憂，這一結(jié)果引發(fā)負(fù)面反應(yīng)或許并不奇怪。事實(shí)上，科辛斯基在那之后就收到了死亡威脅?！叭藗儾幻靼祝业谋疽獠⒉皇且故灸軌蝾A(yù)測(cè)性取向有多酷，”他表示，“整篇論文實(shí)際上是一個(gè)警告，是對(duì)增強(qiáng)隱私保護(hù)的呼吁?！?/p>

By analyzing 83 measuring points on faces, an algorithm correctly identified the sexual orientation of many men based on their photograph in a dating portal. In addition, the program generated supposedly “archetypal straight” (left) and “archetypal gay” (center) faces and calculated how the facial expressions differed on average (right). The researchers say they conducted the study partly to warn that photographs posted on the Internet could be mined for private data. Credit: Yilun Wang and Michal Kosinski; Source: “Deep Neural Networks Are More Accurate Than Humans at Detecting Sexual Orientation from Facial Images,” by Michal Kosinski and Yilun Wang, in Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol. 114, No. 2; February 2018.

通過分析人臉上的83個(gè)測(cè)量點(diǎn)，一種算法根據(jù)約會(huì)網(wǎng)站上大量男性的照片，正確地辨認(rèn)了他們的性取向。此外，該程序還生成了被認(rèn)為是“原型異性戀”(左)和“原型同性戀”(中)的面孔，并計(jì)算出面部表情的平均差異(右)。研究人員說，他們進(jìn)行這項(xiàng)研究的一部分原因就是為了發(fā)出警告——人們發(fā)布在互聯(lián)網(wǎng)上的照片很可能會(huì)被挖掘?yàn)樗饺藬?shù)據(jù)。資料來源：米哈爾·科辛斯基(Michal Kosinski)和王一倫(Yilun Wang)在《人格與社會(huì)心理學(xué)雜志》(Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol.)上發(fā)表的論文《深度神經(jīng)網(wǎng)絡(luò)在從面部圖像判斷性取向方面比人類更準(zhǔn)確》(Deep Neural network Are More Accurate Than human)，2018年2月第二期第114冊(cè)。

In late 2016 computer scientists at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich demonstrated that the personalities of Facebook users can be pinned down more precisely if their likes are coupled with analyses of their profile photograph. Interestingly, the researchers, like many others who use machine-learning software, do not know exactly how the algorithm forms its judgment—for example, whether it relies on such features as a person’s haircut or the formality of the individual’s dress. They are in the dark because machine-learning programs do not reveal the rules they apply in drawing conclusions. The investigators know that the software finds correlations between features in the data and personality but not exactly how it concludes that a man in a photograph is attracted to other men or which characteristics in my e-mail might indicate that I am conscientious and somewhat introverted.

2016年末，瑞士蘇黎世聯(lián)邦理工學(xué)院的計(jì)算機(jī)科學(xué)家證明，如果將Facebook用戶的喜好與他們的頭像分析結(jié)合起來，就能更準(zhǔn)確地確定用戶性格。有趣的是，研究人員和其他許多使用機(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)軟件的人一樣，并不知道這個(gè)算法是如何形成其判斷的——例如，它是否依賴于一個(gè)人的發(fā)型或穿著的正式程度等特征。他們處于黑暗之中，因?yàn)闄C(jī)器學(xué)習(xí)程序沒有揭示他們?cè)诘贸鼋Y(jié)論時(shí)應(yīng)用的規(guī)則。調(diào)查人員只知道，該軟件可以發(fā)現(xiàn)數(shù)據(jù)中的特征與性格之間的關(guān)聯(lián)，但不明白它是怎樣得出結(jié)論的，如一張照片中的男人會(huì)被其他男人吸引，或者我的電子郵件中的哪些特征可能表明我認(rèn)真負(fù)責(zé)，或有些內(nèi)向等。

“The image we are often given is that predicting personality is a kind of magic,” says Rasmus Rothe, who was involved in the Swiss study. “But in the final analysis, computer models do nothing other than find correlations.”

“通常我們形成的印象是，性格預(yù)測(cè)是一種魔法，”參與瑞士這項(xiàng)研究的拉斯莫斯·羅特(Rasmus Rothe)說。“但歸根結(jié)底，計(jì)算機(jī)模型只能找到相關(guān)性?！?/p>

The use of facial-recognition technology for analyzing psychology is not merely an object of research. It has been adopted by several commercial enterprises. Israeli company Faception, for example, says it can recognize whether a person has a high IQ or pedophilic tendencies or is a potential terrorist threat.

人臉識(shí)別技術(shù)在心理學(xué)分析中的應(yīng)用不僅僅是個(gè)研究對(duì)象。這一技術(shù)已被多家商業(yè)企業(yè)采用，例如，以色列一家名為Faception的公司表示，人臉識(shí)別技術(shù)能夠識(shí)別出一個(gè)人是否具有高智商、戀童癖傾向或潛在的恐怖主義威脅。

Even if a correlation is found with a trait, experts have their doubts about the usefulness of such analyses. “All that the algorithms give us are statistical probabilities,” Rothe says. It simply is not possible to identify with certainty whether a person is Mensa material. “What the program can tell us is that someone who looks sort of like you is statistically more likely to have a high IQ. It could easily guess wrong four times out of 10.”

即使發(fā)現(xiàn)了與某種特征的相關(guān)性，專家們也對(duì)這種分析的有效性表示懷疑?！八械乃惴ńo我們的都是統(tǒng)計(jì)概率，”羅特說。要確定一個(gè)人是否是“門薩之才”是不可能的。（門薩是世界頂級(jí)智商俱樂部的名稱，于1946年成立于英國(guó)牛津，創(chuàng)始人是律師羅蘭德·貝里爾和科學(xué)家兼律師蘭斯·韋林。該社團(tuán)通過充滿挑戰(zhàn)性的社團(tuán)活動(dòng)而使參加者的高智商獲得承認(rèn)、肯定和不斷提高，并分享彼此的成功。）“這個(gè)程序能告訴我們的是，從數(shù)據(jù)上看長(zhǎng)得像你的人傾向于擁有更高的智商，但它很容易就在10次中猜錯(cuò)4次。”

With some applications, incorrect predictions are tolerable. Who cares if Apply Magic Sauce comes to comically erroneous conclusions? But the effect can be devastating in other circumstances. Notably, when the characteristic being analyzed is uncommon, more errors are likely to be made. Even if a company’s computer algorithms were to finger terrorists correctly 99 percent of the time, the false positives found 1 percent of the time could bring harm to thousands of innocent people in populous places where terrorists are rare, such as in Germany or the U.S.

對(duì)于某些應(yīng)用程序，不正確的預(yù)測(cè)是可以容忍的。誰會(huì)在意Apply Magic Sauce是否會(huì)得出可笑的錯(cuò)誤結(jié)論呢？但在其他情況下，這種影響則可能是毀滅性的。值得注意的是，當(dāng)分析的特征不常見時(shí)，很可能會(huì)產(chǎn)生更多的錯(cuò)誤。即使一家公司的計(jì)算機(jī)算法在99%的情況下都能正確識(shí)別恐怖分子，但在德國(guó)或美國(guó)等恐怖分子稀少的人口稠密地區(qū)，1%的誤報(bào)率也可能給成千上萬的無辜民眾帶來傷害。

LANGUAGE RECOGNITION AND SUICIDE PREVENTION

語言識(shí)別和自殺預(yù)防

Of course, automatic psychological assessments can be used to help people live better. Suicide-prevention efforts are emblematic. Facebook has such an initiative. The company had noticed that users on its platform occasionally announce there that they intend to kill themselves. Some have even live streamed their death. An automatic language-processing algorithm is now programmed to report suicide threats to the social network’s contact checkers. If a trained reviewer determines that a person is at risk, the person is shown support options.

當(dāng)然，自動(dòng)心理評(píng)估可以用來幫助人們生活得更好，自殺預(yù)防便是其中很典型的一項(xiàng)應(yīng)用。Facebook就有這樣一個(gè)創(chuàng)舉。該公司注意到，其平臺(tái)上的某些用戶偶爾會(huì)在那里宣布他們打算自殺，有些人甚至直播他們的死亡。如今，一種自動(dòng)語言處理算法已被編程用于向社交網(wǎng)絡(luò)聯(lián)絡(luò)篩查者報(bào)告自殺威脅。如果經(jīng)過培訓(xùn)的審核員確定某人處于自殺風(fēng)險(xiǎn)中，則該用戶會(huì)顯示“幫助”選項(xiàng)。

Twitter posts might likewise be worth analyzing, according to Glen Coppersmith, a researcher at Qntfy, a company based in Arlington, Va., that combines data science and psychology to creates technologies for public health. Coppersmith has noted that Twitter messages sometimes contain strong evidence of suicide risk and has argued that their use for screening should be seriously considered.

總部位于弗吉尼亞州阿靈頓的Qntfy公司的研究員格倫·科帕史密斯(Glen Coppersmith)表示，Twitter上的帖子可能同樣值得分析?？婆潦访芩怪赋觯琓witter信息有時(shí)包含自殺風(fēng)險(xiǎn)的有力證據(jù)，他認(rèn)為應(yīng)該認(rèn)真考慮對(duì)這些信息進(jìn)行篩查。

Taking a different tack, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus in Dresden is using smartphones to measure behavioral changes, looking for those characteristic of severe depression. In particular, it is attempting to determine when patients with a bipolar affective disorder are in a manic or depressive phase (see “Smartphone Analysis: Crash Prevention”).

德累斯頓大學(xué)卡爾·古斯塔夫·卡魯斯醫(yī)院采取了不同的策略，利用智能手機(jī)測(cè)量行為變化，尋找重度抑郁癥的跡象。值得一提的是，它試圖確定雙向情感障礙患者何時(shí)處于躁狂或抑郁階段（參見文末相關(guān)鏈接）。

Even designers of algorithms that are created with good intentions must balance the potential for good against the risk of privacy invasion. Samaritans, a nonprofit organization that aims to help people at risk of suicide in the U.K. and Ireland, found this out the hard way a few years ago. In 2014 it introduced an app that scanned Twitter messages for evidence of emotional distress (for example, “tired of being alone” or “hate myself”), enabling Twitter users to learn whether friends or loved ones were undergoing an emotional emergency. But Samaritans did not obtain the consent of the people whose Tweets were being collected. Criticism of the app was overwhelming. Nine days after the program started, Samaritans shut it down. The Dresden hospital has not made the same mistake: it obtains permission from participants before it monitors their smartphone use.

即使是出于好意而創(chuàng)建算法的設(shè)計(jì)者，也必須在潛在的好處和侵犯隱私的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)之間保持平衡?！叭霈斃麃喨耍⊿amaritans）”是一個(gè)旨在幫助英國(guó)和愛爾蘭有自殺傾向的人的非營(yíng)利性組織，幾年前它在艱難的實(shí)踐中發(fā)現(xiàn)了這一點(diǎn)。2014年，該組織推出了一款應(yīng)用程序，這一程序可以掃描Twitter上的信息，尋找精神折磨的證據(jù)（例如，“厭倦了獨(dú)處”或“討厭自己”)，讓Twitter用戶了解朋友或親人是否遭遇了情緒異常情況。但是Samaritans并沒有得到信息來源用戶的同意，對(duì)這款應(yīng)用的批評(píng)鋪天蓋地。該項(xiàng)目啟動(dòng)9天后，不得不關(guān)閉Samaritans。德累斯頓醫(yī)院沒有犯同樣的錯(cuò)誤：它在監(jiān)控參與者使用智能手機(jī)之前，會(huì)先征得他們的許可。

Automated psychological assessments are becoming a part of the digital landscape. Whether they will ultimately be used mainly for good or ill remains to be seen.

自動(dòng)心理評(píng)估正在成為數(shù)字領(lǐng)域的一部分，它們?cè)谶\(yùn)用過程中最終將發(fā)揮好或壞的作用還有待觀察。

延伸閱讀

SMARTPHONE ANALYSIS: CRASH PREVENTION

智能手機(jī)分析：防止情緒奔潰

If Jan Smith (a pseudonym) were to spend the morning in bed and miss a class, his absence would definitely sound an alarm. This is because the 25-year-old student has a virtual companion that is pretty well informed about the details of his daily life—when he goes for a walk and where, how often he calls his friends, how long he stays on the phone, and so on. It knows that he sent four WhatsApp messages and two e-mails late last night, one of which contained more than 2,000 keystrokes.

如果簡(jiǎn)·史密斯（化名）一早上都躺在床上而錯(cuò)過了一節(jié)課，一定會(huì)產(chǎn)生缺席警報(bào)。這是因?yàn)檫@個(gè)25歲的學(xué)生有一個(gè)虛擬的，非常了解他日常生活細(xì)節(jié)的“同伴”——他什么時(shí)候去散步，在哪里，給朋友打電話的頻率，他打電話的時(shí)長(zhǎng)等等。這個(gè)同伴還知道他在昨晚深夜發(fā)送了4條WhatsApp消息和兩封電子郵件，其中一封有超過2000個(gè)單詞。

Smith suffers from bipolar disorder, a mental illness in which mood and behavior constantly swing between two extremes. Some weeks he feels so depressed that he can hardly get out of bed or manage the basic tasks of everyday life. Then there are phases during which he is so euphoric and full of energy that he completes projects without seeming to need sleep.

史密斯患有雙向情感障礙，這是一種情緒和行為經(jīng)常在兩個(gè)極端之間搖擺的精神疾病。有幾周，他感到非常沮喪，幾乎不能起床，也無法處理日常生活中的基本任務(wù)。還有一些階段，他非常興奮，充滿活力，完成項(xiàng)目時(shí)似乎不需要睡覺。

Smith installed a program on his smartphone that records all his activities, including not only phone calls but also his GPS and pedometer readings and when he uses which apps. This information transfers to a server at regular intervals. Smith is taking part in a study coordinated by University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus in Dresden. The goal of the project, known as Bipolife, is to improve the diagnosis and treatment of bipolar disorders. Researchers intend to monitor the smartphones of 180 patients for two years.

史密斯在他的智能手機(jī)上安裝了一個(gè)程序來記錄他所有的活動(dòng)，不僅包括電話通話，還包括他的GPS和計(jì)步器讀數(shù)，以及他何時(shí)使用哪些應(yīng)用程序，這些信息會(huì)定期傳輸?shù)椒?wù)器。史密斯正在參加德累斯頓大學(xué)卡爾·古斯塔夫·卡魯斯醫(yī)院協(xié)調(diào)的一項(xiàng)研究。這項(xiàng)名為Bipolife的項(xiàng)目的目標(biāo)是改善雙相情感障礙患者的診斷和治療。研究人員打算對(duì)180名患者的智能手機(jī)進(jìn)行為期兩年的監(jiān)測(cè)。

They plan to collect moment-to-moment information about each participant’s mental state. Such data should be useful because bipolar patients are often unaware when they are about to have a depressive or manic episode. That was certainly Smith’s experience: “When I was on a high, I threw myself into my work, slept maybe three or four hours, and wrote e-mails to professors at three in the morning. It never occurred to me that this might not be normal. Everyone I knew envied my energy and commitment.”

他們計(jì)劃收集每個(gè)參與者每時(shí)每刻的精神狀態(tài)信息。這些數(shù)據(jù)將發(fā)揮作用，因?yàn)殡p相情感障礙患者往往不知道他們什么時(shí)候會(huì)陷入抑郁或躁狂發(fā)作。這無疑是史密斯的經(jīng)歷：“當(dāng)我情緒高漲時(shí)，我往往會(huì)全身心地投入到工作中，只睡上三四個(gè)小時(shí)，凌晨三點(diǎn)還在給教授們寫電子郵件。我從來沒有想過這可能不正常，我認(rèn)識(shí)的每個(gè)人都羨慕我的精力和奉獻(xiàn)精神。”

The smartphone app is meant to send up warning flares. “The transferred data are analyzed by a computer algorithm,” explains Esther Mühlbauer, a psychologist at the Dresden hospital. For example, it recognizes when a participant makes significantly fewer phone calls or suddenly stops leaving the house—or works around the clock, neglecting sleep. “If our program sees that, it automatically e-mails the patient’s psychiatrist,” Mühlbauer says. Then the psychiatrist gets in touch with the patient.

這款智能手機(jī)應(yīng)用意在發(fā)出警告信號(hào)。德累斯頓醫(yī)院的心理學(xué)家Esther Muhlbauer解釋說：“傳輸?shù)臄?shù)據(jù)將通過計(jì)算機(jī)算法進(jìn)行分析。”例如，當(dāng)一個(gè)參與者打的電話明顯變少，或者突然不出門、不睡覺，它就會(huì)識(shí)別出來?！叭绻覀兊某绦蚩吹竭@一點(diǎn)，它就會(huì)自動(dòng)給病人的精神科醫(yī)生發(fā)送電子郵件，隨后精神病醫(yī)生與病人將取得聯(lián)系。”Esther Muhlbauer說。

The researchers first have to get a baseline, determining, for example, how particular patients use their cell phones during asymptomatic phases. Then the software notes when the behavior deviates from a patient’s norm so that treatment can be given quickly. Smith finds this monitoring very reassuring: “It means that there is always someone there who looks after my condition,” he says. “This can be a significant support, especially for people who live alone.”

研究人員首先要設(shè)定一個(gè)基準(zhǔn)，例如確定特定患者在無癥狀期如何使用手機(jī)。然后該軟件會(huì)記錄下患者的行為何時(shí)偏離了正常水平，以便快速進(jìn)行治療。史密斯發(fā)現(xiàn)這種監(jiān)控非常令人放心：“這意味著總有人在照顧著我的病情，”他認(rèn)為，“這可能是一個(gè)重要的支持，特別是對(duì)那些獨(dú)居的人來說?！?/p>

注：《最了解你的不是另一半 而是互聯(lián)網(wǎng)》來源于Scientific American(點(diǎn)擊查看原文)。數(shù)據(jù)觀王婕/編譯，轉(zhuǎn)載請(qǐng)注明譯者和來源。

責(zé)任編輯：李蘭松