Analysis Why robots aren't likely to make the call on hiring you anytime soon

Artificial intelligence has been hailed as a great equalizer in employee hiring -- technology that has the potential to hide demographics, match candidates based on skills rather than resumes, and get around the biases of hiring managers who gravitate toward people who look or act like them. Companies that offer such tools have been touting those benefits, and more employers are turning to algorithms to help diversify their workforce. But a report this week by Reuters about an experimental project at Amazon to use algorithms and artificial intelligence to recruit workers was a reminder that while such high-tech isn't always a cure-all. The Reuters report said that the tool -- an experiment that was scrapped by the start of last year -- was trained to evaluate applicants by observing patterns in resumes submitted over 10 years, most of which came from men. The system effectively "taught itself that male candidates were preferable," according to Reuters, including penalizing resumes that included the word "women's" or graduates from two all-women's colleges.