Your 20W meat computer does it in the background without you having any control of this process, is that unethical, too?
Besides, people not being the same is a fact of reality which really shouldn't be suppressed from consciousness too much, but that's perhaps a discussion for a different thread.
Part of the core human experience is to estimate these parameters in social settings. It's how we make friends, evaluate social situations, and navigate life. I can't imagine being told we should wear blindfolds. Why would it not be appropriate for computers to do so?
It's not like we'd be using these algorithms to make hiring decisions. We already have a lot of protective legislation on the books.
Ethically viable? That threshold has been crossed a long time ago when any of these related sets of technocratic tyranny enabling abilities were developed.
There are now cameras everywhere and now facial recognition is being integrated into everything, on top of all the other ways of essentially harvesting human rights and dignity for profit and oppressive purposes.
Your mention of ethical viability seems rather late to the situation, a bit of a feel of closing the barn door after the horses have bolted.
What humanity is creating here is more akin to the Matrix than people are able or willing to even acknowledge, even if it is many years out and turns out even worse than the limited imagination of people from the past. Maybe Her and The Terminator are more immediate phases of human development, but the trajectory is clearly there when you simply look at humanity’s tendencies over history and even now. Just as an example, did you ever think you would see something so nakedly and blatantly homicidal and evil as what the Israelis have done and are even still doing in Gaza? Does any of that indicate that humanity is going to do anything responsible and ethical?
The only purpose of appeals to ethics and morality appear to have been to disarm the dominant power by the subordinate power that aspires to become the dominant power in the world, an amoral, unethical, nakedly narcissistic and psychopathic power.
