FACE VALUES.

• Author: Mangu-Ward, Katherine

A presentation about the perils of A.I. and facial recognition could easily fall into fearmongering cliches about the end of privacy and the dangers of evil corporations. Instead Face Values: Exploring Artificial Intelligence, an award-winning exhibit showing at the Cooper Hewitt in New York through May 25, humbly poses the question: How much can we really know about people from their faces?

A brief history of attempts to glean information from facial topography by criminologists, beauticians, doctors, and eugenicists primes visitors with a sense of the fallibility of the science. Then interactive stations allow them to watch tools designed to do things...