Though personality tests have captivated Americans for decades, today, they are increasingly ubiquitous. While these assessments may boost self-understanding, they can also be used against us in hidden ways. On YouTube, personality vloggers gain millions of followers talking about tests like the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, the gold standard in personality testing that breaks individuals into 16 types, through distinctions like introversion-extroversion and intuition-sensing. The MBTI has its roots in the turn-of-the-century experiments of Katharine Cook Briggs, who, inspired by the work of Carl Jung, ran tests on her daughter, Isabel Briggs Myers, who would later turn that research into an assessment tool in the 1950s that went on to fuel a multi-billion-dollar industry.

While the Myers-Briggs Company doesn’t support the use of their tests for hiring purposes, it’s not uncommon for job candidates to be tested with other personality assessments as part of the application process, despite thorny legal and ethical implications. As much as people want to trust the veracity of the MBTI, it has a complicated past. As technology fuels offshoots of personality testing, many warn of the very real danger of predictive A.I. defining one’s future from childhood. Ultimately, Persona expresses grave concerns about using personality testing to make business decisions and begs us all to reconsider how much value we place on personality typing in general.