AI seen ‘discriminating’ job applicants

A professor based in Istanbul warned that artificial intelligence (AI) allows job recruiters to allegedly do “algorithmically discriminating” against applicants based on their race, gender, language and religion.

As reported by Turkish news service Anadolu, Yeliz Bozkurt Gumrukcuoglu, a professor of private law at Ibn Haldun University in Istanbul, said that tech giants like Meta, Google and Amazon have been known to use such filtering tools, providing recruiters with time efficiency.

She said that “algorithmic discrimination” occurs when the data the AI is trained on already carries biases against certain groups, eventually discriminating them.

The professor said that the issue has been the subject of multiple lawsuits in many countries, first emerging in a case regarding Amazon.

“Amazon developed its own recruitment algorithm with the data trained by the candidates accepted in the last decade, most of which were men. And when put into use, the filtering filtered out women candidates directly,” she said as quoted by Anadolu.

“Facebook, similarly, pushed its own discriminatory filtering that emerged as a case in the US in 2018, and the Danish government imposed an administrative fine on the social media platform for the same reason,” she added.

Furthermore, Gumrukcuoglu noted that some job candidates were denied by recruitment algorithms on issues such as having traditionally black hair styles, living in allegedly highly immigrant-concentrated regions, or even listening to certain artists and genres of music.

She said that tech entities and companies recruiting workers using AI filtering should be more concerned on human rights and values, while governments should monitor closely the ethical violations related to the use of AI.

“For example, the EU has decided to implement a regulation on the risk of AI being used in this field,” she said.

“Filtering algorithms need to be developed to be more transparent and to be held accountable for their decisions, so two choices lay before us: Will we let AI develop as rapidly as it is today, or will we step on the brakes a little and move forward slowly in an ethical framework? We will see the answer in the coming period,” Gumrukcuoglu added.

(PHOTO FROM PIXABAY)

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