The danger of bias
AI is increasingly being used in HR and talent departments, as well as in payroll to automate tasks such as hiring decisions, recruitment and workforce management. The main issue in this area is the potential for entrenched or invisible bias. If the data the AI is trained on is historical, it could be biased against women in jobs where there have traditionally been more men, or vice versa. It may be biased against ethnic minorities, perhaps making judgements based on names. Or it might be using other filtering techniques that are not obvious to the end user. Individuals could challenge why they did not progress in a recruitment process and, if the company is unable to show that they made the decision fairly, penalties could result.
Providing more data and information, by using AI systems, can provide the human with better information on which to make decisions. However, we should bear in mind that just as humans have cognitive biases, AI can also “learn” to be biased, if it is trained on data which itself is biased. Individuals could challenge why they did not progress in a recruitment process and, if the company is unable to show that they made the decision fairly, penalties could result.
AI AND ETHICS | PART TWO: THE DANGER OF BIAS
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