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This has got to be a fake. The only way AI would be able to make any sort of correct judgment about someone's probable future performance is if it had some trai

This has got to be a fake. The only way AI would be able to make any sort of correct judgment about someone's probable future performance is if it had some training set of data of employees who had their interviews recorded and who were known to be bad in some way. However, it's still a massive leap in logic to be able to correlate anything an AI could observe to some tangibly bad behavior later on. I'm thinking the promises of this technology will never be realized.

stopads 7y ago
Google and other large tech giants have been working on precisely that sort of AI with those types of data for at least 10 years now. They are famous for tinkering with their hiring process based on mountains of data, with mostly bad results. Which aspect do you find farfetched?
- xiphias2 7y ago
  At Google machine learning was was always used for vetting the 100k+ applications per year that the HR team just doesn't have time to go through. The main goal was to filter people who have the biggest chance to go through the human interviews later in the process. The only reason why it's called ,,AI'' now is because it's trendy. It can be just a simple linear model that takes education (University) and GPA score into account. The simplest way to skip these filters is to get a reference from a person who already works at the company.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I wonder why ultra-elite companies like Google don't swap to a model where they reach out to people they want to hire, rather than accepting random applications?
    - orbifold 7y ago
      They reach out to people regularly based on their GitHub profile for example.
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      They do reach out to people they want to urge to apply; the set of people they "want to hire" is pretty small.
      - glandium 7y ago
        They reach out to people, but those people end up in the same bucket as everyone else.
    - pja 7y ago
      Google employees a team of recruiters to do exactly this.
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        I know - I meant why do they also have an open mailbox for millions of people not remotely qualified (I presume) to spam into, creating this problem for themselves. If you’re at the level of working for Google you’re presumably already at the absolute top of your field internationally and will know people at Google you can reach out to personally.
        detaro 7y ago
        Google hires tons of people fresh out of university, they're not going to be "at the absolute top of their field" or well-connected. (they do seem to hire previous interns a lot, but that moves the filter having to handle the flood to people applying for internships instead)
    - xiphias2 7y ago
      There was a specific class action law suit about it actually: a no poach agreement between top big tech companies, to keep salaries lower. After the law suit my salary was increased 10% at Google, although I didn’t even work in US :)
      - chrisseaton 7y ago
        I think no-poach applied the same weather you applied or they reached out to you, so it’s not that.
    - Gh0stRAT 7y ago
      People who reach out to them are probably cheaper than people that Google has to reach out to.
    - AlexCoventry 7y ago
      They do. Google's been asking me to interview with them multiple times a year for almost a decade.
    - alasdair_ 7y ago
      > I wonder why ultra-elite companies like Google don't swap to a model where they reach out to people they want to hire, rather than accepting random applications? This is exactly what happens. Most experienced engineers I know with a good resume get emails almost weekly from Google and Amazon in particular.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  I don't buy that the training set is any good.
- mistrial9 7y ago
  confirm that at least one UC Berkeley affiliated PR was paid quite a lot of money to do exactly this kind of work for several years, that was five years ago at least.. they did not use bombastic terms to describe the project, evoking the authority aspect, instead they used language that signaled "finding hidden talent"
- AlexCoventry 7y ago
  I think they were saying the claimed performance of the interview-processing software has got to be fake, not that the article must be. I read it the same way as you at first,though.
matheweis 7y ago
Not sure on the current state of things on the recruiting side but it was tried at Amazon. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t run it again (if they aren’t already) if they can solve some of the problems discussed https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automatio... I’m not too worried about the long game though, humans are proving to be quite adaptable with tools like this one; an AI that optimizes your resume to match a given job description: https://www.jobscan.co/ https://www.jobscan.co/
LeftHandPath 7y ago
I am not sure where I heard it, but I keep coming back to the quote "There is no algorithm for absolute truth". People who aren't in-the-know about AI tend to lend it much more credit, when it comes to its ability to accurately measure something, than is due.
- bsenftner 7y ago
  There is no scientific method to recover, access, or identify another consciousnesses mental state short of asking them, and then you must deal with the possibility of their answer being incorrect due to a entire complex world of reasons. This class of "AI" is pure fraud.
jmull 7y ago
You're right in that there's no reason to believe AI can do this effectively. However, in my experience, HR departments and hiring processes are anything but rational. HRs buy any kind of snake oil by the barrel, and hiring managers generally reach their position for reasons entirely unrelated to the ability to identify and hire above average employees.
- bsenftner 7y ago
  HR departments are by definition on the defensive, that is a large part of what "human resources" is - a legal shield department to make sure employees stay in their lanes, with employment and legal threats as guardrails. All they need is a few pop culture articles saying these "truth/personality/job filtering AIs" are liability traps, and they will cease to be popular instantly. HR is a fear driven department, play on that.
mattnewton 7y ago
Absolutely, without this it is just snapshotting and compressing the particular biases of the interviewers in the training set, in a lossy way, not training against ground truth (good hire // bad hire)
bsenftner 7y ago
In my opinion, this abuse of "AI" is criminal fraud. It is simply not possible to do what they claim. The entire "industry" of companies offering these services need to be investigated and shut down.

stopads 7y ago

Google and other large tech giants have been working on precisely that sort of AI with those types of data for at least 10 years now. They are famous for tinkering with their hiring process based on mountains of data, with mostly bad results. Which aspect do you find farfetched?

xiphias2 7y ago
At Google machine learning was was always used for vetting the 100k+ applications per year that the HR team just doesn't have time to go through. The main goal was to filter people who have the biggest chance to go through the human interviews later in the process. The only reason why it's called ,,AI'' now is because it's trendy. It can be just a simple linear model that takes education (University) and GPA score into account. The simplest way to skip these filters is to get a reference from a person who already works at the company.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I wonder why ultra-elite companies like Google don't swap to a model where they reach out to people they want to hire, rather than accepting random applications?
  - orbifold 7y ago
    They reach out to people regularly based on their GitHub profile for example.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    They do reach out to people they want to urge to apply; the set of people they "want to hire" is pretty small.
    - glandium 7y ago
      They reach out to people, but those people end up in the same bucket as everyone else.
  - pja 7y ago
    Google employees a team of recruiters to do exactly this.
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I know - I meant why do they also have an open mailbox for millions of people not remotely qualified (I presume) to spam into, creating this problem for themselves. If you’re at the level of working for Google you’re presumably already at the absolute top of your field internationally and will know people at Google you can reach out to personally.
      - detaro 7y ago
        Google hires tons of people fresh out of university, they're not going to be "at the absolute top of their field" or well-connected. (they do seem to hire previous interns a lot, but that moves the filter having to handle the flood to people applying for internships instead)
  - xiphias2 7y ago
    There was a specific class action law suit about it actually: a no poach agreement between top big tech companies, to keep salaries lower. After the law suit my salary was increased 10% at Google, although I didn’t even work in US :)
    - chrisseaton 7y ago
      I think no-poach applied the same weather you applied or they reached out to you, so it’s not that.
  - Gh0stRAT 7y ago
    People who reach out to them are probably cheaper than people that Google has to reach out to.
  - AlexCoventry 7y ago
    They do. Google's been asking me to interview with them multiple times a year for almost a decade.
  - alasdair_ 7y ago
    > I wonder why ultra-elite companies like Google don't swap to a model where they reach out to people they want to hire, rather than accepting random applications? This is exactly what happens. Most experienced engineers I know with a good resume get emails almost weekly from Google and Amazon in particular.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
bradleyjg 7y ago
I don't buy that the training set is any good.
mistrial9 7y ago
confirm that at least one UC Berkeley affiliated PR was paid quite a lot of money to do exactly this kind of work for several years, that was five years ago at least.. they did not use bombastic terms to describe the project, evoking the authority aspect, instead they used language that signaled "finding hidden talent"
AlexCoventry 7y ago
I think they were saying the claimed performance of the interview-processing software has got to be fake, not that the article must be. I read it the same way as you at first,though.

matheweis 7y ago

Not sure on the current state of things on the recruiting side but it was tried at Amazon. I don’t see any reason why they wouldn’t run it again (if they aren’t already) if they can solve some of the problems discussed https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automation-insight/amazon-scraps-secret-ai-recruiting-tool-that-showed-bias-against-women-idUSKCN1MK08G https://www.reuters.com/article/us-amazon-com-jobs-automatio... I’m not too worried about the long game though, humans are proving to be quite adaptable with tools like this one; an AI that optimizes your resume to match a given job description: https://www.jobscan.co/ https://www.jobscan.co/

LeftHandPath 7y ago

I am not sure where I heard it, but I keep coming back to the quote "There is no algorithm for absolute truth". People who aren't in-the-know about AI tend to lend it much more credit, when it comes to its ability to accurately measure something, than is due.

bsenftner 7y ago
There is no scientific method to recover, access, or identify another consciousnesses mental state short of asking them, and then you must deal with the possibility of their answer being incorrect due to a entire complex world of reasons. This class of "AI" is pure fraud.

jmull 7y ago

You're right in that there's no reason to believe AI can do this effectively. However, in my experience, HR departments and hiring processes are anything but rational. HRs buy any kind of snake oil by the barrel, and hiring managers generally reach their position for reasons entirely unrelated to the ability to identify and hire above average employees.

bsenftner 7y ago
HR departments are by definition on the defensive, that is a large part of what "human resources" is - a legal shield department to make sure employees stay in their lanes, with employment and legal threats as guardrails. All they need is a few pop culture articles saying these "truth/personality/job filtering AIs" are liability traps, and they will cease to be popular instantly. HR is a fear driven department, play on that.

mattnewton 7y ago

Absolutely, without this it is just snapshotting and compressing the particular biases of the interviewers in the training set, in a lossy way, not training against ground truth (good hire // bad hire)

bsenftner 7y ago

In my opinion, this abuse of "AI" is criminal fraud. It is simply not possible to do what they claim. The entire "industry" of companies offering these services need to be investigated and shut down.