4 ms·

Notice of collective action lawsuit against Workday, Inc.

125 points by mooreds 10mo ago

parliament32 10mo ago
> allegations include that Workday, Inc., through its use of certain Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) features on its job application platform, violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) I'm interested to see Workday's defense in this case. Will it be "we can't be held liable for our AI", and will it work against a law as "strong" as ADEA?
- Hamuko 10mo ago
  Hopefully they have something better prepared because "we can't be held liable for the black box we made" doesn't sound like a recipe for success. In Canada, they've already ruled that a website operator is liable for information that their LLM chatbot gives out. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatb...
- advisedwang 10mo ago
  ADEA says: > It shall be unlawful for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of such individual's age, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of such individual's age. I don't see any wiggle room for outsourced decision making to remove the responsibility for the outcome.
edoceo 10mo ago
Key part is that AI is suspected of down-ranking folks by age (ADEA = Age Discrimination in Employment Act) > The Court has provisionally certified an ADEA collective, which includes: “All individuals aged 40 and over who, from September 24, 2020, through the present, applied for job opportunities using Workday, Inc.’s job application platform and were denied employment recommendations.” In this context, being “denied” an “employment recommendation” means that (i) the individual’s application was scored, sorted, ranked, or screened by Workday’s AI; (ii) the result of the AI scoring, sorting, ranking, or screening was not a recommendation to hire; and (iii) that result was communicated to the prospective employer, or the result was an automatic rejection by Workday.
baggachipz 10mo ago
Age discrimination is a huge issue and I've experienced it firsthand. Places want to hire younger people because they're more apt to work longer hours for less pay. It's going to get worse as people who got into the web tech industry early on are still in the workforce, yet more and more young people are entering the workforce because "learning to code" was the perceived path to prosperity half a decade ago.
- unyttigfjelltol 10mo ago
  > Places want to hire younger people because they're more apt to work longer hours for less pay. This is the best light you can shine on the discrimination. Most often it really is managers taking their “seniority” literally. As in, they don’t want to take the risk their reports are smarter, more experienced or capable of replacing them, so they discriminate on the basis of age. It’s counterintuitive, but this feels truest from my historical observation.
  - rtp4me 10mo ago
    I wonder if this is really true or just an off-the-cuff comment (no disrespect). I have worked for a number of major tech companies and have never seen this in practice. Some managers were older, some were younger, some the same age. In most/all cases, people were hired based on their technical skills not because they fell into some magical age gap.
    - unyttigfjelltol 10mo ago
      Idk, it’s what I observed over many years in many scenarios. It’s the better fit for explaining why some clearly motivated candidates run into headwinds as “overqualified.” Big organizations have done better, and maybe the view is a bit stale and who knows.
- eightys3v3n 10mo ago
  I've experienced the opposite where some smaller companies won't even look at a resume for someone under 30. One of the owners admitted it to me later on. :(
boscillator 10mo ago
It will be fascinating to see the facts of this case, but if it is proven their algorithms are discriminatory, even by accident, I hope workday is held accountable. Making sure your AI doesn't violate obvious discrimination laws should be basic engineering practice, and the courts should help remind people of that.
- candiddevmike 10mo ago
  Would love to see some of the liability transfer to the companies using Workday too...
- zugi 10mo ago
  An AI class that I took decades ago had just a 1 day session on "AI ethics". Somehow despite being short, it was memorable (or maybe because it was short...) They said ethics demand that any AI that is going to pass judgment on humans must be able to explain its reasoning. An if-then rule says this, or even a statistical correlation between A and B indicates that would be fine. Fundamental fairness requires that if an automated system denies you a loan, a house, or a job, it be able to explain something you can challenge, fix, or at least understand. LLMs may be able to provide that, but it would have to be carefully built into the system.
  - nemomarx 10mo ago
    I'm sure you could get an LLM to create a plausible sounding justification for every decision? It might not be related to the real reason, but coming up with text isn't the hard part there surely
    - SpaceNoodled 10mo ago
      It sounds like you're saying we should generate more bullshit to justify bullshit.
      - teraflop 10mo ago
        They said "could", not "should". I believe the point is that it's much easier to create a plausible justification than an accurate justification. So simply requiring that the system produce some kind of explanation doesn't help, unless there are rigorous controls to make sure it's accurate.
phonon 10mo ago
https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66831340/mobley-v-workday-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66831340/mobley-v-workd...
mh- 10mo ago
As someone over 40, I couldn't help but laugh at the font size on the site.. I guess they know their audience.
- ryandrake 10mo ago
  The first HN link I visited in a long time where I didn't have to hit ctrl-+ 3 or more times to increase the font size and make it readable.
  - mh- 10mo ago
    lol, exactly my response. I have HN itself at 150% (ctrl-+ 3x).
davio 10mo ago
Regardless of merit, this seems like appropriate payback for having to make a new workday account for every single company you apply to a job.
- michaelteter 10mo ago
  Having done a lot of online applications in the last two years, I often just pass up companies that only have their application on Workday. Workday is without question the most abominable of the online application systems available today.
  - shakkhar 10mo ago
    Surely you haven't seen taleo.
jkhall81 10mo ago
Oh snap.
akersten 10mo ago
Feel bad for the next guy who wants to sue them but has to settle for workdaycase2 .com I never liked these "trust me bro we're court authorized, give us all your PII to join the class action" setups on random domains. Makes phishing seem inevitable. Why can't we have a .gov that hosts all these as subdomains?
- Aeolun 10mo ago
  Yeah, that’s always my first reaction as well.
sakesun 10mo ago
As I remember, Workday was found when a founder is in his 60s.
joshcsimmons 10mo ago
I covered this for my channel yesterday and was surprised how widespread this is. Like most people are likely affected. https://youtu.be/7MA7xEgkGvY https://youtu.be/7MA7xEgkGvY

125 points by mooreds 10mo ago

> allegations include that Workday, Inc., through its use of certain Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) features on its job application platform, violated the Age Discrimination in Employment Act (“ADEA”) I'm interested to see Workday's defense in this case. Will it be "we can't be held liable for our AI", and will it work against a law as "strong" as ADEA?

Hamuko 10mo ago
Hopefully they have something better prepared because "we can't be held liable for the black box we made" doesn't sound like a recipe for success. In Canada, they've already ruled that a website operator is liable for information that their LLM chatbot gives out. https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatbot-misinformation-what-travellers-should-know https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20240222-air-canada-chatb...
advisedwang 10mo ago
ADEA says: > It shall be unlawful for an employment agency to fail or refuse to refer for employment, or otherwise to discriminate against, any individual because of such individual's age, or to classify or refer for employment any individual on the basis of such individual's age. I don't see any wiggle room for outsourced decision making to remove the responsibility for the outcome.

edoceo 10mo ago

Key part is that AI is suspected of down-ranking folks by age (ADEA = Age Discrimination in Employment Act) > The Court has provisionally certified an ADEA collective, which includes: “All individuals aged 40 and over who, from September 24, 2020, through the present, applied for job opportunities using Workday, Inc.’s job application platform and were denied employment recommendations.” In this context, being “denied” an “employment recommendation” means that (i) the individual’s application was scored, sorted, ranked, or screened by Workday’s AI; (ii) the result of the AI scoring, sorting, ranking, or screening was not a recommendation to hire; and (iii) that result was communicated to the prospective employer, or the result was an automatic rejection by Workday.

baggachipz 10mo ago

Age discrimination is a huge issue and I've experienced it firsthand. Places want to hire younger people because they're more apt to work longer hours for less pay. It's going to get worse as people who got into the web tech industry early on are still in the workforce, yet more and more young people are entering the workforce because "learning to code" was the perceived path to prosperity half a decade ago.

unyttigfjelltol 10mo ago
> Places want to hire younger people because they're more apt to work longer hours for less pay. This is the best light you can shine on the discrimination. Most often it really is managers taking their “seniority” literally. As in, they don’t want to take the risk their reports are smarter, more experienced or capable of replacing them, so they discriminate on the basis of age. It’s counterintuitive, but this feels truest from my historical observation.
- rtp4me 10mo ago
  I wonder if this is really true or just an off-the-cuff comment (no disrespect). I have worked for a number of major tech companies and have never seen this in practice. Some managers were older, some were younger, some the same age. In most/all cases, people were hired based on their technical skills not because they fell into some magical age gap.
  - unyttigfjelltol 10mo ago
    Idk, it’s what I observed over many years in many scenarios. It’s the better fit for explaining why some clearly motivated candidates run into headwinds as “overqualified.” Big organizations have done better, and maybe the view is a bit stale and who knows.
eightys3v3n 10mo ago
I've experienced the opposite where some smaller companies won't even look at a resume for someone under 30. One of the owners admitted it to me later on. :(

boscillator 10mo ago

It will be fascinating to see the facts of this case, but if it is proven their algorithms are discriminatory, even by accident, I hope workday is held accountable. Making sure your AI doesn't violate obvious discrimination laws should be basic engineering practice, and the courts should help remind people of that.

candiddevmike 10mo ago
Would love to see some of the liability transfer to the companies using Workday too...
zugi 10mo ago
An AI class that I took decades ago had just a 1 day session on "AI ethics". Somehow despite being short, it was memorable (or maybe because it was short...) They said ethics demand that any AI that is going to pass judgment on humans must be able to explain its reasoning. An if-then rule says this, or even a statistical correlation between A and B indicates that would be fine. Fundamental fairness requires that if an automated system denies you a loan, a house, or a job, it be able to explain something you can challenge, fix, or at least understand. LLMs may be able to provide that, but it would have to be carefully built into the system.
- nemomarx 10mo ago
  I'm sure you could get an LLM to create a plausible sounding justification for every decision? It might not be related to the real reason, but coming up with text isn't the hard part there surely
  - SpaceNoodled 10mo ago
    It sounds like you're saying we should generate more bullshit to justify bullshit.
    - teraflop 10mo ago
      They said "could", not "should". I believe the point is that it's much easier to create a plausible justification than an accurate justification. So simply requiring that the system produce some kind of explanation doesn't help, unless there are rigorous controls to make sure it's accurate.

phonon 10mo ago

https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66831340/mobley-v-workday-inc/ https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/66831340/mobley-v-workd...

mh- 10mo ago

As someone over 40, I couldn't help but laugh at the font size on the site.. I guess they know their audience.

ryandrake 10mo ago
The first HN link I visited in a long time where I didn't have to hit ctrl-+ 3 or more times to increase the font size and make it readable.
- mh- 10mo ago
  lol, exactly my response. I have HN itself at 150% (ctrl-+ 3x).

davio 10mo ago

Regardless of merit, this seems like appropriate payback for having to make a new workday account for every single company you apply to a job.

michaelteter 10mo ago
Having done a lot of online applications in the last two years, I often just pass up companies that only have their application on Workday. Workday is without question the most abominable of the online application systems available today.
- shakkhar 10mo ago
  Surely you haven't seen taleo.

jkhall81 10mo ago

Oh snap.

akersten 10mo ago

Feel bad for the next guy who wants to sue them but has to settle for workdaycase2 .com I never liked these "trust me bro we're court authorized, give us all your PII to join the class action" setups on random domains. Makes phishing seem inevitable. Why can't we have a .gov that hosts all these as subdomains?

Aeolun 10mo ago
Yeah, that’s always my first reaction as well.

sakesun 10mo ago

As I remember, Workday was found when a founder is in his 60s.

joshcsimmons 10mo ago

I covered this for my channel yesterday and was surprised how widespread this is. Like most people are likely affected. https://youtu.be/7MA7xEgkGvY https://youtu.be/7MA7xEgkGvY