The idea that Amazon is trying to enforce diversity by using an algorithm that is made to detect, and match, patterns boggles the mind. Why, yes, if your recrui

The idea that Amazon is trying to enforce diversity by using an algorithm that is made to detect, and match, patterns boggles the mind. Why, yes, if your recruiting cost function is "is that person just like all the others we hired", you will end-up with a non-diverse workforce, no matter whether the model optimized with this function has 20 layers, 250 hyperparameters, or two legs, two arms and a fast-receding hairline. You can de-bias by explicitly controlling for gender, but now everyone in your company went to CMU and likes dogs. The more I see news about what recruiting for ultra-large corporations, the more I think one of two things is true: * ultra-large corporations are doomed to hire less and less well in a way that is more and more biaised, and we should regulate against such corporations in a way that forces them to redistribute their wealth to SMBs; * ultra-large corporations need to start exclusively growing through acquisitions, which will have the effect of redistributing their wealth to SMBs, and also of hiring a more diverse base of employees because there is a priori a greater diversity of backgrounds leading to success in the free market than the diversity of backgrounds leading to success in the Amazon interview.