Yes, It's a Poker Face, But Is It The Same Poker Face?

Faception is a new piece of technology that the owners state “can analyze faces from video streams (recorded and live), cameras, or online/offline databases, encode the faces in proprietary image descriptors and match an individual with various personality traits and types with a high level of accuracy.” I love companies with ambition and this is quite a claim.

Faception can apparently categorize your face into 15 different categories which include demographic groups like poker players, bingo players, white collar offenders and mixed martial artists. This made me wonder what sort of face a crooked manager who likes a bet on fighting might have? Probably a tired face, when I think about it. I also hope any scan that detects multiple facial bruises does not report there is an increase likelihood that person is a cage fighter! I am sure it is more technical than that.

Faception says that:

The same types of people that like card games, for example, also enjoy competitive eSports and these people regularly migrate to playing poker or vice versa. Poker players obviously take a shared interest in playing cards, handling chips and winning money. Without these shared interests it would be difficult to find the joy in playing poker. Is it really a surprise then to find that we share physical as well as psychological similarities with those that like the activities and pastimes we enjoy?

When I first read about Faception’s technology I was amazed and a little disconcerted. In time could such a scan reveal I am a thirty something casual card player who has a particular weakness for Big Macs (the plural rather than the singular) and a less than stellar record with the opposite sex? I have always thought it was my face that was the problem and Faception seems to agree that I was right, but perhaps not for the reasons I would suggest.

Perhaps we should not be surprised at all that this technology is now entering the mainstream. To some degree, it is already there. Facebook tells us they can recognize the faces in your photos 98% of the time and they are a social media company. Considering that the majority of photos on Facebook are not forward facing like a passport photo is required to be, we appreciate that Facebook has very sophisticated software indeed.

We could write entire essays on the implications for our privacy although it is highly like that Faception is not developing anything more sophisticated than what the intelligence agencies are already using.

There are other drawbacks. You will have heard the saying “never ASSUME anything as it makes an ASS out of U and ME.” We live in a world where superficial presumptions and the court of public opinion can ruin lives with the accusation rendered against the individual being wholly inaccurate. This becomes a secondary concern when the accusation and subsequent recrimination takes on a life of its own. In the same way that polygraph lie detector tests are good indicators, they are not infallible, yet their use is often presumed as categorical by the general public despite none of the manufacturers ever suggesting their results are 100% right all of the time. We watch as chat show hosts on TV use lie detector test results to build drama and solve disputes, announcing the results to an excited audience and a concerned family, without ever suggesting there is a chance the test could be wrong, even if their success rate is very high.

So what does this say about our poker face? Clearly we are giving away far more information than we realise simply because our face is visible, no matter what lengths we go to in order to hide our emotions. On a somewhat lighter note this could help us to end recrimination from our friends and family about our poker playing activities. Tell them to look at your face and then say you were born that way, it's literally in your DNA. Don’t expect this to cut any ice though even if you do have science on your side.

How long before Faception develops a mobile app that has you can use at the poker tables and will casinos and card rooms ever let you use it? Perhaps this is an indication of my age but sometimes technology emerges where I sit back and think “I never saw this coming.” This is one of those occasions.

To conclude I offer a humorous scenario where you are playing in a cash game and face an all-in from a tough looking opponent. The situation is marginal, so you search for tells. Whilst you think about your decision you remember your face scanning app and you take a cursory scan of your opponents face, hoping for an indication either way about whether or not to call. This is not strictly ethical and possibly even against the rules, but you are desperate so you do it anyway.

The app reveals your opponent is not likely to be a professional poker player, but you are rather unsettled to read the software believes he is far more likely to be a terrorist. You fold, collecting your chips from the dealer and you head home. Quickly.