Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Risk of Bias in Recruitment Decisions

As part of the UK data protection authority's new three-year strategy (ICO25), launched on 14 July, UK Information Commissioner John Edwards announced an investigation into the use of AI systems in recruitment. The investigation will have a particular focus on the potential for bias and discrimination stemming from the algorithms and training data underpinning AI systems used to sift recruitment applications. A key concern is that training data could be negatively impacting the employment opportunities of those from diverse backgrounds. Bias is a particular risk in AI or machine learning systems designed not to solve a problem by following a set of rules, but instead to "learn" from examples of what the solution looks like. If the data sets used to provide those examples have bias built in, then an AI system is likely to replicate and amplify that bias.