Artificial Intelligence Poses New Threat to Equal Employment Opportunity

Just when we thought it was safe to go back in the water, a new threat has emerged to equal employment opportunity as employers base hiring decisions on artificial intelligence powered video and game-based "pre-employment" assessments of job candidates. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a non-profit research center based in Washington, D.C., recently asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to investigate HireVue, a recruiting company based in Utah that purports to evaluate a job applicant's job qualifications through online "video interview" and/or "game-based challenge." According to its web site, HireVue has more than 700 customers worldwide including over one-third of the Fortune 100 and such leading brands such as Unilever, Hilton, JP Morgan Chase, Delta Air Lines, Vodafone, Carnival Cruise Line, and Goldman Sachs. The company states it has hosted more than ten million on-demand interviews and one million assessments. The EFF complaint follows a wave of lawsuits in recent years charging that employers are using software algorithms to discriminate against older workers by targeting internet job advertisements exclusively to younger workers.