People judge other people all the time. It’s completely normal, natural even, so don’t feel bad if you judge a person based on their social media profile picture – cause a new algorithm certainly doesn’t.
This algorithm was developed by UK researchers. It was devised in a way that it can predict how smart someone is by looking at their social media profile image. Beside faces, the algorithm also takes into account certain behavioral cues, such as how people pose for the camera, the presence of partners or friends in their pictures, the clothes they wear, etc.
In the study, researchers used profile pictures from 1,122 Facebook users who had taken an IQ test. They taught their algorithm to make two separate predictions: the first one is a person’s intelligence based on their profile pictures, and the second one is their perceived intelligence based on the likely responses of others.
The result? The algorithm was able to accurately predict not only how smart someone really is, but also how smart other people are likely to think they are. It appears that intelligent people understand that profile picture is the best with a single person captured in focus, and with a clear, uncluttered background. Also, intelligent people frequently use color green, but not pink, red or purple.
The Wonderful World of Algorithms 