Disability rights advocates are concerned about discrimination in AI recruitment tools

Making recruitment technology available means that the candidate can use the technology and that the skills he or she measures do not inappropriately exclude candidates with disabilities, he says. Alexandra Givens, CEO Center for Democracy and Technology, an organization that focuses on civil rights in the digital age.

AI-driven recruitment tools do not often include people with disabilities when creating their training data, he says. Such people have long been out of the workforce, so algorithms modeled on a company’s previous hiring will not reflect their potential.

Although models can have rich values, the way disability is presented varies greatly from person to person. Two people with autism, for example, can have very different strengths and challenges.

“When we automate these systems and drive employers to the fastest and most efficient, it allows people to show off their qualifications and ability to do the job,” says Givens. “And that’s a big loss.”

A hands-on approach

Government regulators have difficulty controlling AI recruitment tools. In December 2020, 11 senators wrote A letter ra U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission expressing concerns about the use of procurement technologies after the covid-19 pandemic. The letter asked about the authority of the agent to investigate whether the tools discriminate against these tools, especially against those with disabilities.

He responded with the EEOC A letter in January this was leaked to the MIT Technology Review. In the letter, the commission stated that it cannot investigate tools for hiring AI without specific claims of discrimination. Because of the letter’s hesitation in sharing data with the industry, he said changes between different companies ’software would prevent the spread of EEOC policies.

“I was shocked and disappointed when I saw the answer,” he says Roland Behm, a lawyer and advocate for people with behavioral health problems. “The full tenor of that letter was that the EEOC is more of a passive appearance than an enforcement agency.”

Usually the agency initiates an investigation when an individual files a discrimination application. With AI hiring technology, however, most candidates don’t know why they were rejected for the job. “I think we haven’t seen any more enforcement action or private litigation in that area for a reason that candidates don’t know that a computer is being graded or evaluated,” he says. Keith Nerd, EEOC Commissioner.

Sonderling says he believes artificial intelligence will improve the hiring process, and hopes the agency will provide guidance to employers on how best to implement this. He says congressional oversight is welcome.