4 ms·
Why not just use text? There are many speech characteristics of gender that will never be found and masked by modulation. Simple placements of words, parts of
by gravypod 10y ago
Why not just use text? There are many speech characteristics of gender that will never be found and masked by modulation.
Simple placements of words, parts of speech referring to the self, and other things are all much better clues to gender then voice frequency and pitch. For example, when speaking to some people who I know who are either naturally very high or low pitch, or are trans-gendered, there is a lot more information that can be contextually extracted from the content of their speech.
Really, just do text-based interviews. It will allow people to revise what they are thinking and really allow them to mask their gender.
- BoysenberryPi 10y agoBecause your actual interview will not be text-based and if their goal is to simulate an actual interview scenario where you will be speaking out loud an expected to form coherent thoughts to questions on the fly this comes closer to doing so than text based.
- mwcampbell 10y agoAnd why shouldn't the actual interview be text-based? Yes, that would be a drastic change, and it would render on-site interviews pointless. But then again, it would eliminate a lot more biases, e.g.based on accent and disabilities.
- jacobr 10y agoMany jobs will use mostly written communication, then it doesn't matter much how you perform verbally, and a text-based interview would probably work well, or even better. If you're expected to cooperate closely and communicate verbally with colleagues, you would want to know how the candidate handles that before hiring them.
- BoysenberryPi 10y agoYou're basically putting up a straw-man and attacking it at this point. I never claimed the actual interviews should be verbal but the fact is they are and they are preparing you for what actual interviews are like not what ideal interviews are like.
- weberc2 10y agoText doesn't solve the problems you described. I believe there could be non-content-related clues present in voice-chat that are absent in text-chat, but all of your examples were content-based clues.
- gravypod 10y agoPut a Gender-O-Meter on it. Use some NLP to determine the perceived gender and show the users. Maybe highlight words that contribute to the score.
- killface 10y agoLol, if we switch the tech industry to text-only interviews, get ready for the full-day programming problems to come back. You get so much from speech cues, filler words, etc. To try to completely eliminate that and still make rational hiring decisions is a fool's errand.
- gravypod 10y agoI'd rather be interviewed with a problem then based on how I speak.