You are what you “like.”

That is the finding of a new study from Stanford University and the University of Cambridge. Researchers took the “likes” of Facebook (FB) users and had a computer analyze that information to determine the users’ personality traits. And the scientists discovered that with enough “likes” to work with, the computer did a better job in recognizing those traits than even the family and friends of the users.

Yahoo Senior Columnist Michael Santoli isn’t surprised.

“These online social network relationships are this sort of mosaic that integrates so many different things about your personality,” he says. “It’s not just one way you know someone, such as a co-worker or a friend.”

One of the authors says the study suggests the kinds of human-computer interactions in films such as Her are not beyond our reach. In the film, a man develops a relationship with an intelligent computer operating system with a female voice.

Santoli sees the importance of their findings a bit differently.

“I think the implications are much more about tailoring the advertising,” he argues. “That’s why Facebook is a $200 billion company. It’s that people think they can really tailor advertising in that much smarter a way.”

Santoli calls that the “promise” of Facebook.

“They can go to advertisers and basically say we can produce the perfect ad campaign,” he adds. “They can actually give people what they want when they don’t even know they want it and it doesn’t even feel like an ad to them.”

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Santoli says the kind of information advertisers can get from Facebook blows away that “other” big advertising medium.

“For Facebook, it’s really beyond what television can do,” he says. “All we know about TV is you might watch one show. We don’t know what else you do in your life or where that fits in your life.”

But can focusing on “likes” really do that much beyond what traditional advertising offers?

“Obviously, Facebook’s algorithms are a lot more complicated an intricate than just tallying up somebody’s ‘likes’ and seeing how they relate to one another,” Santoli says. “This is the reason why Wall Street has been excited about Facebook. And the fact that Facebook has been able to do that on mobile platforms as well as desktops means they can track you wherever you go.”

And even if all this sounds Orwellian, Santoli doesn’t necessarily think we’ll see a big backlash against what might be seen as “Big Brother” information collection.

“I don’t know if people are going to get a little bit uncomfortable with this level of virtual knowledge out there,” he says. “But people have been heralding that for a really long time, and yes, maybe younger people will do some other things. But you know what? What are younger people doing? Instagram, owned by Facebook. Seems you can’t really escape very easily.”