Assessing the Physiognomic Critique

Abstract

Abstract This chapter addresses the foremost criticism of emotion recognition technologies: that it is a modern form of physiognomy, or the practice of assessing a person’s character or personality from their outer appearance. Links with physiognomy are made in quality press coverage and critical technology studies, but the question for this chapter is whether the criticism correct. Does it follow that because emotional AI is akin to physiognomy in method, that emotional AI is also racist? To explore this, the chapter assesses early physiognomy as well as later and less-cited physiognomists. The chapter answers its original question but also finds physiognomy to be highly influential on several unexpected fields, including empathy itself, phenomenology, and critical theory. It also finds later physiognomy to be less reductive, leading it to tally with emergent and dynamic conceptions of automated empathy that admit of personal and contextual factors when making judgements about people.