Technology

59711 readers

5618 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

461

AI hiring tools may be filtering out the best job applicants (www.bbc.com)

submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by [email protected] to c/technology

94 comments fedilink hide all child comments

an AI resume screener had been trained on CVs of employees already at the firm, giving people extra marks if they listed "baseball" or "basketball" – hobbies that were linked to more successful staff, often men. Those who mentioned "softball" – typically women – were downgraded.

Marginalised groups often "fall through the cracks, because they have different hobbies, they went to different schools"

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 13 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I disagree. Screwing up your hiring process is a Darwin Award level mistake for a company.

Its only a screw-up if it upsets your investors. And it does not seem like the McDonalds EBITDA has suffered over the past few years.

Choosing not to hire someone because they like baseball is insane

The AI tool - according to the article - is using baseball and softball as a proxy for determining whether the applicant is a man or a woman, and biasing its selection accordingly. That's not insane. Its just prejudiced in a manner that evades our comically ill-enforced nondiscrimination enforcement codes.

[–] assassin_aragorn 7 points 9 months ago (1 children)

McDonald's actually did suffer in some regard recently. Execs have admitted they need to lower prices or they'll lose business.

I think the thing is, companies always go too far eventually. At some point, they cross the line and have to walk it back. We'll probably see the same thing here. Recruiters will use more and more AI until someone crosses the line, and then there'll be a rapid retreat.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil 1 points 9 months ago

Execs have admitted they need to lower prices or they’ll lose business.

They saw a 40% EBITDA spike in 2022. Then they came off their peak by ten points in 2023.

Overall, enormous net growth.

Recruiters will use more and more AI until someone crosses the line, and then there’ll be a rapid retreat.

Recruiters won't exist once businesses fully integrate AI. All you'll have is performance tuning of the automated hiring tools.