According to the Realistic Accuracy Model, the accuracy of the personality judgment depends on the availability and the amount of the relevant behavioral information, along with the judges’ ability to detect and use it correctly (1, 2, 5). Such con- ceptualization reveals a couple of major advantages that com- puters have over humans. First, computers have the capacity to store a tremendous amount of information, which is difficult for humans to retain and access. Second, the way computers use information—through statistical modeling—generates consistent algorithms that optimize the judgmental accuracy, whereas humans are affected by various motivational biases (27). Nev- ertheless, human perceptions have the advantage of being flex- ible and able to capture many subconscious cues unavailable to machines. Because the Big Five personality traits only represent some aspects of human personality, human judgments might still be better at describing other traits that require subtle cognition or that are less evident in digital behavior. Our study is limited in that human judges could only describe the participants using a 10-item-long questionnaire on the Big Five traits. In reality, they might have more knowledge than what was assessed in the questionnaire.
Automated, accurate, and cheap personality assessment tools could affect society in many ways: marketing messages could be tailored to users’ personalities; recruiters could better match candidates with jobs based on their personality; products and services could adjust their behavior to best match their users’ characters and changing moods; and sci- entists could collect personality data without burdening par- ticipants with lengthy questionnaires. Furthermore, in the future, people might abandon their own psychological judg- ments and rely on computers when making important life decisions, such as choosing activities, career paths, or even romantic partners. It is possible that such data-driven decisions will improve people’s lives.