Shazam for the soul - can computers assess us better than humans?

Unlike people, algorithms are rarely prejudiced, which has important implications for assessing our personality

We live in a reputation economy. Decisions about work, relationships, finances and health are based on what other people think of us. Our reputation is increasingly easy to crowdsource and retrieve online, though unlike Uber drivers there is no single rating to illustrate how competent we are. But we are not far off.

Imagine an algorithm that synthesises all of our consumer, social network and browsing data - what we buy and sell on Amazon and eBay, what we watch on Netflix and listen to on Spotify and the internet pages we visit most (as well as our Google searches). Imagine that same algorithm inferring our likability and popularity from our interactions with our Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn friends.