{"id":137306,"date":"2018-10-11T07:53:26","date_gmt":"2018-10-11T13:53:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/11\/amazon-scraps-ai-recruiting-tool-that-was-biased-against-women.html"},"modified":"2018-10-11T07:53:26","modified_gmt":"2018-10-11T13:53:26","slug":"amazon-scraps-ai-recruiting-tool-that-was-biased-against-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2018\/10\/11\/amazon-scraps-ai-recruiting-tool-that-was-biased-against-women.html","title":{"rendered":"Amazon scraps AI recruiting tool that was biased against women"},"content":{"rendered":"

And when it wasn't being biased, it was just not very good.<\/p>\n

As someone who has been dealing with both recruiters \/ "talent acquisition" people of late, as well as brick-stupid Applicant Tracking Systems that are designed to filter out non-matching resumes based on finnicky text matching, I think the idea of applying more sophisticated AI techniques to the process is an interesting one.<\/p>\n

But this instance points out a major issue: detecting and correcting unexpected and unwanted biases. Nobody explicitly programmed the AI to favor male targets for recruitment; it "learned" what sorts of resumes and (presumably) Linkedin profiles to find based on previous hires done and the words used in their resumes and profiles. Which, if you've had a past record of hiring mostly men, means you're designing a system to support … the hire of more men.<\/p>\n

(This can be true in flesh-and-blood recruitment, too.)<\/p>\n

Kudos to Amazon for pulling the plug and starting over from scratch. Other AI biases (like human biases) may not be so easy to spot in the future.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nAmazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women<\/a><\/span>
\nAmazon.com Inc’s machine-learning specialists uncovered a big problem: thei…\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Original Post<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

And when it wasn't being biased, it was just not very good. As someone who has been dealing with both recruiters \/ "talent acquisition" people of late, as well as brick-stupid Applicant Tracking Systems that are designed to filter out non-matching resumes based on finnicky text matching, I think the idea of applying more sophisticated … Continue reading “Amazon scraps AI recruiting tool that was biased against women”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-137306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":131507,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/09\/12\/typos-and-resumes.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":0},"title":"Typos and Resumes","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 12-Sep-16 11:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I'll confess that in my previous job I was a lot less forgiving of typos on resumes and cover letters. That was before I realized that current job-hunting advice was to tailor resumes for every job application, pulling in search terms from the job posting and melding them effectively into\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":45380,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/09\/19\/the-biggest-resume-mistakes.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":1},"title":"The Biggest Resume Mistakes","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 19-Sep-14 7:42am","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven't read nearly as many resumes as Mr Bock (the SVP of HR for Google), but I've read quite a few, and, yeah, this list sounds right:1. Typos (spelling, grammar, punctuation)2. Length (TL;DR)3. Formatting (clarity, cross-platform)4. Confidential Information (if your boss would object, don't)5. Lies (spin is one thing,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5678,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2004\/01\/26\/resume_fire.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":2},"title":"R\u00e9sum\u00e9 fire","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 26-Jan-04 4:16pm","format":false,"excerpt":"As someone who has read way too many badly-written resumes and cover letters, the best advice I can give to anyone on the subject is read this. Truth. It starts...","rel":"","context":"In "Job Jollies"","block_context":{"text":"Job Jollies","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/job-jollies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":51796,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/07\/19\/job-hunt-week-1.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":3},"title":"Job Hunt: Week 1","author":"***Dave","date":"Sun 19-Jul-15 11:17pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In which Our Hero doesn't actually do any job hunting, but preparation for same, which frustrates the heck out of him, but was probably the right thing to do, as long as job hunting ensues soon:- I got my resume and LinkedIn profile much more up to snuff -- and\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/job-hunt5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/job-hunt5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/07\/job-hunt5B15D.jpgimgmax%3D660.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":30831,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2012\/10\/24\/sifting-through-resumes.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":4},"title":"Sifting through resumes","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 24-Oct-12 3:31pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I am building a list of advice for folks who apply for IT jobs. Or at least for the IT jobs I have openings for at the moment. Unfortunately, since I am in the process of hiring same, I think I will wait until after the dust has settled. \u00a0But\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":43402,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2014\/07\/09\/looking-at-religious-discrimination-in-job-applications.html","url_meta":{"origin":137306,"position":5},"title":"Looking at religious discrimination in job applications","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 9-Jul-14 6:31am","format":false,"excerpt":"Sociologists sent in resumes to online job postings for various entry-level positions around the South. The only variation was participation in a campus organization while in college.What they found was that, in general, if the campus organization mentioned was any kind of religious organization (\"University of Alabama Catholic Association\"), it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=137306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/137306\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=137306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=137306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=137306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}