Amazon's AI recruitment tool decided men were better employees!

[Born Hunter 17,637]

Quote

“Everyone wanted this holy grail,” one of the people said. “They literally wanted it to be an engine where I’m going to give you 100 resumes, it will spit out the top five, and we’ll hire those.”

But by 2015, the company realized its new system was not rating candidates for software developer jobs and other technical posts in a gender-neutral way.

That is because Amazon’s computer models were trained to vet applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted to the company over a 10-year period. Most came from men, a reflection of male dominance across the tech industry.

In effect, Amazon’s system taught itself that male candidates were preferable. It penalized resumes that included the word “women’s,” as in “women’s chess club captain.” And it downgraded graduates of two all-women’s colleges, according to people familiar with the matter. They did not specify the names of the schools.

Amazon edited the programs to make them neutral to these particular terms. But that was no guarantee that the machines would not devise other ways of sorting candidates that could prove discriminatory, the people said.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUKKCN1MK08K

 

   

 

Though it is true that AI will 'learn' the biases that are part of it's training I think this is piss funny because I genuinely think there is going to be serious issues in the future where the post modernist etc Left have to face up to the fact that we just ain't all equal! Some people are just more likely to be better at some stuff than others.

On the topic, it's another example of how AI techniques are going to replace humans in the work place. Like how automation put folks out of work in factories, this will put folks out of work in offices. I read somewhere that 'they' reckon that 80% of doctors work will be replaced by AI diagnostic equipment in the next few decades.

[tatsblisters 7,934]

Still don't think they will ever get automation to clean peoples arses in care homes.

[mushroom 12,387]

AI could not do my job. Granted it could learn technique, questions etc but to respond in an emotionally logical way, is impossible with current processing power and AI tech.

Mate of mine has a PHD in AI and we've had several conversations about this. Simply put, AI programs are given parameters, they can learn (to a degree) within those parameters sometimes outside too. The problem when they learn outside of their given limits is it becomes gobbledygook. What AI is really good at is spotting differences. In pharma they are using it to go through thousands of drug simulations, to find the most likely ones that will work. Those singled out, will go on to real world trials in the lab. Speeds things up a bit but doesn't replace the human element. 

 

At least for now!

Edited October 10, 2018 by mushroom

[Born Hunter 17,637]

23 minutes ago, mushroom said:

AI could not do my job. Granted it could learn technique, questions etc but to respond in an emotionally logical way, is impossible with current processing power and AI tech.

Mate of mine has a PHD in AI and we've had several conversations about this. Simply put, AI programs are given parameters, they can learn (to a degree) within those parameters sometimes outside too. The problem when they learn outside of their given limits is it becomes gobbledygook. What AI is really good at is spotting differences. In pharma they are using it to go through thousands of drug simulations, to find the most likely ones that will work. Those singled out, will go on to real world trials in the lab. Speeds things up a bit but doesn't replace the human element. 

 

At least for now!

For now perhaps, but soon enough there will be AI that can perfectly replicate human communication. Feed it enough examples and it'll figure it out. That's if human communication is even considered necessary by then. I think consultancy will be entirely replaced by AI and the only consultants left will be the programmers/operators.