AI resume-screening systems used by major Fortune 500 companies may be discriminating against mothers, a study suggests. Researchers at New York University believe they may have unearthed a bias against women who have taken considerable time off work for maternity leave. The team fed hundreds of resumes to four models, including ChatGPT and Google's Bard, and found that they all rejected resumes with the gap. When asked for the reasoning behind the decision, the tech shared: 'Including personal information about maternity leave is not relevant to the job and could be seen as a liability.' The researchers described the trends as'alarming,' given that virtually every major company uses the tech to screen resumes.

As Kaggle's moderating data scientist for the Data Science Bowl, I'm fortunate to have met first-time competitor Nicole Finnie. Her team (Unet Nuke) impressively ranked within the top 2%, earning Nicole a silver medal. More impressively, I learned that Nicole had no ML/DS experience just a year ago, and picked up these new skills through online classes during her recent maternity leave. As an expectant mother, I found Nicole's story inspiring and am excited to share it with the broader Kaggle community this Mother's Day. I hold a Bachelor degree in Computer Science and a Master degree in Software Engineering specialized in computer visualization.

Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka promised during the Republican National Convention that her father would offer more help to working families, and this week the elder Trump laid out more of the specifics: six weeks of paid maternity leave for new mothers and a new approach to tax breaks for child-care expenses. Perhaps the best that can be said is that it's refreshing to see a Republican presidential candidate advocate for federal paid family leave policies and financial assistance to help working parents afford the tremendous costs of raising children. Like so much of what Trump has said during the campaign, the proposal falls short on details, including how to pay for these new benefits, and it's woefully out of touch with the needs of many families. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's plan is similarly lacking in key details, but at least her plan is more attuned to the challenges faced by the growing proportion of families with no stay-at-home parents. And yet, the nation is probably better off with Trump offering a flawed, half-baked plan, rather than no plan, because it suggests a bipartisan consensus that maternity leave and child care are critical national issues that the federal government can do much more to address.