Got warned about an AI hiring tool bias at my last job, ignored it and paid for it

My old boss Mark at a call center in Tampa told me our new screening AI was flagging too many minority candidates based on their names. He showed me the data from 6 months of hires and it was pretty clear. I told him he was overthinking it and the system was just picking the best fits. Well fast forward 3 months and we got a formal complaint from the state labor board. Turns out Mark was totally right and now we have to spend like $15k on a fairness audit. Has anyone else had a similar situation where a coworker called out bias early but nobody listened?

3 comments

3 Comments

robert6593d ago

Did you get stuck dealing with the fallout too?

brianreed2d ago

Oh man @robert659, yeah I went through the same thing with an automated screener last year... What finally worked for me was just tweaking my resume to match the exact wording from the job description. It's dumb but the bots look for specific phrases so I started copying their own language back at them.

max_brown3d ago

Read a study that said AI hiring tools amplify human bias unless checked. @robert659 sorry you got burned too.