AI alarmists warn that machine learning will end up destroying humanity — or at the very least make humans redundant. But what if the real worry was more mundane — that AI tools simply do a bad job?That is what Hilke Schellmann, a reporter and professor at New York University, felt after spending five years investigating tools that are now widely used by employers in hiring, firing and management. Bots increasingly dictate which job ads we see online, which CVs recruiters read, which applicants make it to a final interview and which employees receive a promotion, bonus — or redundancy notice. But in this world where algorithms “define who we are, where we excel, and where we struggle . . . what if the algorithms get it wrong?” asks Schellmann in The Algorithm, an account of her findings.
Recruiters and managers have many reasons to turn to AI: to sift impossibly large piles of CVs and fill posts faster; to help them spot talented people, even when they come from an atypical background; to make fairer decisions, stripping out human bias; or to track performance and identify problem staff.
CV screening tools for potential bias are liable to filter out candidates from certain postcodes, a recipe for racial discrimination