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Computers aren't just doing hard math problems and showing us cat videos. Increasingly, they judge our character. Maybe we should be grateful.
A company in Palo Alto, Calif., called Upstart has over the last 15 months lent $135 million to people with mostly negligible credit ratings. Typically, they are recent graduates without mortgages, car payments or credit card settlements.
Those are among the things that normally earn a good or bad credit score, but these people haven't been in the working world that long. So Upstart looks at their SAT scores, what colleges they attended, their majors and their grade-point averages. As much as job prospects, the company is assessing personality.
The idea, validated by data, is that people who did things like double-checking the homework or studying extra in case there was a pop quiz are thorough and likely to honor their debts.
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/07/26/using-algorithms-to-determine-character/
[Other Companies Involved With Similar Programs]: ZestFinance , Workday
(Score: 4, Interesting) by danmars on Monday July 27 2015, @07:07PM
Look at it this way: If you borrow money and pay it back, you're a known quantity. Other people know you pay back what you owe, and are more likely to trust you to pay them back if you need to borrow money from them. If you've never owed someone a cent in your life, lenders have no idea what you'll do when you do borrow money (regardless of your promises). Since you've never needed or asked to borrow before, odds are that you're only borrowing money because something's gone horribly wrong in your life, which throws up even more red flags about whether you'll pay it back.
So, would you rather lend money to:
a. A person who regularly or semi-regularly borrows money from people, then pays it back on the agreed terms?
b. A person who's never borrowed money in his life, who now shows up at your door asking to borrow?
The safer, known quantity is the person who's always borrowed money. You know what he'll probably do and he's not breaking character. The non-borrower is a mystery.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @07:36PM
A society that favors debt, waste, and greed is one that is broken by design.
Besides, is the SAT supposed to be impressive? It might show you're decent at rote memorization if you get a good grade, but that's about it. I guess that's why the better universities have so-called 'weed-out' classes.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 27 2015, @08:56PM
Who would you rather hire:
a. A person who has been caught committing crimes and fulfilled their sentence with good behavior.
b. A person who has never been caught committing a crime.
Just because something is known does not make it better.