IBM Watson Personality Insights

IBM claims that it can provide insights to my personality by analyzing the text I write. Let's test this by separately feeding it the text of my last few blog posts and seeing what it says about each one:

Organ Donor Safety Exemptions:

You are shrewd, unconventional and can be perceived as indirect.

You are imaginative: you have a wild imagination. You are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life. And you are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time.

Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you.

Well-Being Analysis:

You are shrewd, inner-directed and can be perceived as indirect.

You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination.

Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and tradition. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

So far, pretty consistent. But both of those blog posts were technical academic analysis. What happens when I give it a first-person account of a more emotional experience?

Chen Guangcheng:

You are social, boisterous and unconventional.

You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are assertive: you tend to speak up and take charge of situations, and you are comfortable leading groups. And you are confident: you are hard to embarrass and are self-confident most of the time.

Your choices are driven by a desire for efficiency.

You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you.

That is a big change in the 'you are' and 'driven by' lines, and the first paragraph is entirely different. The only commonality is the 'unconcerned with tradition' and 'helping others' parts of the last paragraph.

Now, what does it think about my account of going out and helping people who got their cars stuck in the snow?

Car Shoving:

You are heartfelt.

You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. And you are calm-seeking: you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe.

Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being.

You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

Again, it says something almost completely different. It is interesting to note that the personality analysis for the last two are backwards. I think that this paragraph describes the Me who attended the Chen Guangcheng talk, and the previous one describes the Me who went out to shove cars. It is particularly funny that it reacts to my description of shoving cars around in hilly slippery roads by saying 'you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe'.

Now we go back to a more a more analytical post, but a different kind of analysis:

Media Musings:

You are shrewd, somewhat inconsiderate and can be perceived as indirect.

You are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life. You are carefree: you do what you want, disregarding rules and obligations. And you are imaginative: you have a wild imagination.

Your choices are driven by a desire for efficiency.

You consider both independence and taking pleasure in life to guide a large part of what you do. You like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them. And you are highly motivated to enjoy life to its fullest.

The first line looks like its reaction to my other bits of analysis, and the 'desire for efficiency' is a repeat, but the rest is mostly things it has not said about me before. What might it say next?

Confusing Social Norms

You are a bit inconsiderate, somewhat critical and excitable.

You are melancholy: you think quite often about the things you are unhappy about. You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. And you are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys.

Your choices are driven by a desire for connectedness.

You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you. You are relatively unconcerned with taking pleasure in life: you prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment.

Some new and different stuff, some repeats. That post was more of an expression of confusion and questioning than an account or analysis. Let's chalk that one down to the small sample size, it was just 360 words after I chopped out the quotes and links.

The next one should be more informative, as it combines analysis and first-person accounts, and talks about something that is more connected to my identity:

Lego in Asia

You are inner-directed and skeptical.

You are calm-seeking: you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are deliberate: you carefully think through decisions before making them.

Your choices are driven by a desire for prestige.

You are relatively unconcerned with both taking pleasure in life and tradition. You prefer activities with a purpose greater than just personal enjoyment. And you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

The overall analysis sounds familiar and kind of accurate, but it jumps out at me that it says 'you are skeptical' to a blog post that I would characterize as being filled with the wonder of shared experience and progress and connectedness. It has not said that about any other post.

Cargo Cult Crafts:

You are excitable.

You are laid-back: you appreciate a relaxed pace in life. You are empathetic: you feel what others feel and are compassionate towards them. And you are calm-seeking: you prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe.

Your choices are driven by a desire for well-being.

You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider independence to guide a large part of what you do: you like to set your own goals to decide how to best achieve them.

Okay, that one just confused the algorithm. It says that I am both excitable and laid-back, that I 'prefer activities that are quiet, calm, and safe' when the entire focus of the blog post is about how I like to hack at real pumpkins with real knives and learn by taking risks, and that I am 'unconcerned with tradition' when I defend the traditions of my childhood against a shallow commercial substitute.

Its reaction to Important Information, Important Caveat is about the same as its reaction to most analysis posts, so no sense repeating it. But I want to feed it one last post, a rant, to see how it reacts:

Whack Rant

You are a bit compulsive, somewhat critical and skeptical.

You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time. You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys. And you are melancholy: you think quite often about the things you are unhappy about.

Your choices are driven by a desire for efficiency.

You consider achieving success to guide a large part of what you do: you seek out opportunities to improve yourself and demonstrate that you are a capable person. You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done.

That is actually about how you would expect someone to react to an intellectual takedown of something I hated.

Overall, it is pretty clear that the system does not have any deep personality insights. It is reacting almost entirely to the rhetorical choices I make for each particular post. Anyone who has any writing skill or understanding of rhetoric knows that you should use a different voice, tone, and approach in different situations.

The only thing consistently output, in eight of ten writing samples, was that I am relatively unconcerned with tradition. Nothing else showed up in more than half of the results. This probably reflects my consistent use of scientific and analytical language.

Five of the results claimed that 'You are intermittent: you have a hard time sticking with difficult tasks for a long period of time.' and another five claimed 'You are unconcerned with art: you are less concerned with artistic or creative activities than most people who participated in our surveys.' I consider both of these claims to be dubious, and I am not really sure where they came from.

Four of the results claimed that I am shrewd, empathetic, driven by prestige, guided by helping others, and/or unconcerned with taking pleasure in life. Again, that seems kind of random and not really connected to who I am.

As a final bit of fun, let me plug the output of the system into its input, so we can see what it says about itself:

You are confident and generous.

You are assertive: you tend to speak up and take charge of situations, and you are comfortable leading groups. You are calm under pressure: you handle unexpected events calmly and effectively. And you are respectful of authority: you prefer following with tradition in order to maintain a sense of stability.

Experiences that give a sense of well-being hold some appeal to you.

You are relatively unconcerned with tradition: you care more about making your own path than following what others have done. You consider helping others to guide a large part of what you do: you think it is important to take care of the people around you.