This paper investigates how accurately the prediction of being an introvert vs. extrovert can be made with less than ten predictors. The study is based on a previous data collection of 7161 respondents of a survey on 91 personality and 3 demographic items. The results show that it is possible to effectively reduce the size of this measurement instrument from 94 to 10 features with a performance loss of only 1%, achieving an accuracy of 73.81% on unseen data. Class imbalance correction methods like SMOTE or ADASYN showed considerable improvement on the validation set but only minor performance improvement on the testing set.

A machine that can handle basic tasks -- think the self-service checkout at Walmart or an ATM machine -- is a better option for one particular segment of the population. That's right -- introverts already know the benefits of machine learning. Full disclosure here: I have not paid a human for gas in about eight years. There have been a few times when I go into the gas station, but it's always to scour around for donuts or to find the restroom. A few friends and relatives are in the same boat.

I can be loud at times, and I'm not shy, so a lot of people assume that I'm an extrovert. When I explain this to people, they ask me, "Well, if you're such an introvert, why are you talking to a group of strangers in an elevator? This is a social interaction that you initiated and could have easily avoided." I just shake my head at how misunderstood the word "introvert" is these days. For example, people think that if you're an introvert, you don't like parties.

I think the idea of designing robots that look like humans to better interact with humans is a solid "meh." The concept is good, but the execution is usually horrible, and the more your robot tries to look like a human, the more horrible it gets. Having said that, I think that the idea of using robots with specific human features, like eyes, can be a substantial asset for human-robot interaction, if you know what you're doing. Sean Andrist, a PhD student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (who knows what he's doing), has been researching social gaze with robots. He's developed algorithms that help robots look at people at the right times and in the right ways.