Researchers from Cambridge University have established that recruitment tools powered by artificial intelligence are not reducing bias or improving hiring diversity.

In their research, they analysed two key claims offered by recruitment AI companies in relation to the development and deployment of AI-powered HR tools.

The first is that recruitment AI can assess candidates objectively, by removing gender and race from their systems.

The second claim suggested the removal of gender and race will make recruitment fairer, help customers attain their DEI goals, and lay the foundations for a truly meritocratic culture to thrive within an organisation.

However, the Cambridge researchers suggested the claims are ‘misleading’ for four reasons, including that AI systems often misunderstand the concepts of gender and race whilst attempting to remove them from the process.

Outsourcing of “diversity work” to AI-powered hiring tools may also “unintentionally entrench cultures of inequality and discrimination,” the researchers suggested, by “failing to address the systemic problems within organisations.

Supposedly neutral assessment of a candidate traits by AI-powered hiring tools fails to give a true impression of the “power relationship between the observer and the observed”.

Additionally, recruitment AI tools help produce the “ideal candidate” that they supposedly identify through by constructing associations between words and people’s bodies, they said.

“From these four conclusions outlined above, we offer three key recommendations to AI HR firms, their customers, and policy makers going forward,” the researchers said.

“First, industry practitioners developing hiring AI technologies must shift from trying to correct individualized instances of “bias” to considering the broader inequalities that shape recruitment processes,” the researchers suggested.

The second suggestion is that people working in a HR capacity using AI-based hiring tools must “engage meaningfully with the ways that AI is shifting power in their own field”.

“Time-pressed and overworked HR professionals are understandably excited by the potential of AI to revolutionize HR practices. However, while recognizing the extra demands this places on HR professionals, we believe it is essential that HR professionals possess at the very least a basic understanding of the limitations of AI-powered hiring tools,” they said.

Recommended

• What can be done about Scotland’s disappearing bank branches?
• Embedding innovation into all aspects of business strategy and culture
• New coalition calls for better online fraud protections

Lastly, the research suggested that there is still “largely an insufficient contribution” from AI ethicists, regulators, and policymakers: “Serious concerns also remain in regard to the efficacy of these regulatory approaches,” they said.

The researchers continued: “Since AI-powered HR tools can and will reproduce forms of difference and discrimination, it is crucial that the AI ethics community scrutinize the claims and the products made by AI hiring companies, and how these technologies are deployed in industry contexts.

“Specifically, it must combat companies’ claim that these technologies remove any evidence of “difference,” and instead interrogate how these supposedly “neutral” technologies are themselves actively involved in the production and inscription of difference throughout the hiring process.”

Get the latest news from DIGIT direct to your inbox

Our newsletter covers the latest technology and IT news from Scotland and beyond, as well as in-depth features and exclusive interviews with leading figures and rising stars.

To subscribe, click here.