Your Next Job Interview Could Be With a Racist Bot (thedailybeast.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Beast: Companies across the nation are now using some rudimentary artificial intelligence, or AI, systems to screen out applicants before interviews commence and for the interviews themselves. As a Guardian article from March explained, many of these companies are having people interview in front of a camera that is connected to AI that analyzes their facial expressions, their voice and more. One of the top recruiting companies doing this, Hirevue, has large customers like Hilton and Unilever. Their AI scores people using thousands of data points and compares it to the scores of the best current employees. But that can be unintentionally problematic. As Recode pointed out, because most programmers are white men, these AI are actually often trained using white male faces and male voices. That can lead to misperceptions of black faces or female voices, which can lead to the AI making negative judgments about those people. The results could trend sexist or racist, but the employer who is using this AI would be able to shift the blame to a supposedly neutral technology. Companies are also having people do their first interview with an AI chatbot. "One popular AI that does this is called Mya, which promises a 70 percent decrease in hiring time," reports The Daily Beast. "Any number of questions these chatbots could ask could be proxies for race, gender or other factors."

Comments

Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Time to send a message to Corporations they will never forget. We should start with those Kangaroos Republicans on the USSC. Traitors.

Re:Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Kangaroos Republicans

foreign scum troll detected.

Re: Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Trump die he must faggot but in prison, comrade.

Re: Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

Lol what is up with the comments on this site.

Any time I see Capitalization used incorrectly, I just assume some Human is entering the text in a Text Field on a form somewhere to make sure the Automated Bots are talking about the correct Topic.

Re: Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

only chatbots here, mate. you're talking to yourself lol...

Re:Criminal

[Anonymous Coward]

"Relax Mark," she says. I slowly unzip my pants.

The living room in this house has an incredible view. It’s as if you can see every inch of the Bay Area from up here. Is the Bay Area seeing every inch of me though?

Mark begins to sob. "My mother was right." He hangs his head in anguish. "I should have married a nice Jewish woman."

"Oh please." Priscilla rolls her eyes. "Have you ever even met a Jewish American Princess? The first JAP you would have tied the knot with would have taken half of your shit and used that money to keep the ball rolling with the next ten men."

"But look at what you’re doing now! I guess I should have expected no better from a girl I met at an AEPi party!" Mark shoots back.

"We agreed this would be the best action to take for the health of our marriage. Why are you so bitter now?"

"I don’t know. It just feels weird."

"That’s normal," Priscilla says coolly. She looks straight at me: "Let’s get this over with."

"Listen, if you guys aren’t comfortable with this, I can leave," I say, trying to keep the situation calm. A dog enters the room. It’s big, with what looks like long white pool noodles for fur. If Bob Marley had an Albino dog, this would be it. He seems confused, but he can tell Mark is agitated. The canine looks at me and begins to snarl.

"Calm down, Beast!" Priscilla shouts.

The dog immediately cowers back in fear, whimpering quietly. How did I get myself into this? Priscilla looks back at me: "No, you’re finishing this."

I shift my gaze back from the dog to the window. "So, are you comfortable, Priscilla?" Great view.

"Doctor," she corrects me.

"Doctor Priscilla?"

"Doctor Chan."

"Have you done something like this with your patients?" Mark interrupts anxiously.

"No Mark, I just prefer to be called by my proper title with strangers. Stop being so petty. You know I love you. I’m doing this for you," she replies gently.

"Yeah. I’m sorry honey. You know I’m just getting worked up," Mark begins to twiddle his thumbs.

"Ugh. You’re worse than your mother. Do you want to be like them?"

I have to interject- "Like who?"

Priscilla is quick to answer: "The Obamas. The Musks. You know."

"No, I really don’t," I answer. Because I don’t. What are these bizarre people going on about?

"Like last New Year’s eve. Elon Musk filed for divorce while everyone was out having the time of their lives," Priscilla explains.

"And the Obamas?" I inquire further.

Mark answers, "I’m pretty much on a first-name basis with Barry. The controversy is that last Christmas vacation when the Obamas flew out to Hawaii, Barry came back, but Michelle stayed an extra week. It was quite a spectacle."

"’I’m pretty much on a first-name basis with Barry.’" Priscilla repeats mockingly. "As if we don’t all know Obama’s first name."

"I don’t get it. What do those guys have to do with you?" I need to ask again, for I am not one of quick wit.

"Well, frankly, the marriage is stagnating. We married too young and never really got to explore ourselves. But we can’t get a divorce, it would be too high profile. The press wouldn’t stop harassing us about it. It would be like if Hillary and Bill got a divorce halfway through her campaign run," Priscilla explains.

"I understand." I don’t actually understand. But who knows how long this explanation of their scheming and paltry concerns will go on for? I don’t really care.

"The last thing Mark would want," Priscilla starts again, "is for me to run away from San Francisco, and travel the world alone! I’d even have a blog, where I would tell everyone that they need to quit their jobs, marry a nice Jewish boy from Harvard with a budding social network, and then split up with him and travel the world!"

"Hindsight is 20/20," I reply, trying to point out that her strateg

Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

We have sexist hiring now. What about all those blind hiring trials that ended up hiring more men... and then got cancelled and the result buried ASAP.

So we do have sexist hiring now... just not the kind feminists want to talk about.

Re:Blind hiring

[Pinky's Brain]

More so, this won't change anything. Anyone who thinks these algorithms won't be tweaked by the females in HR and Asian males in management to satisfy the Jewish men who own the media is silly.

Don't worry your silly little heads liberals, affirmative action won't go away ...

Re:Blind hiring

[AmiMoJo]

I'm a feminist and I do want to talk about this. Sorry to so bluntly prove you wrong.

Anyway, yes, that was an interesting but not entirely unexpected result, and one which feminists have been studying for a long time. Doesn't just affect women, it affects people with disabilities, people who didn't go to university, older/younger people (depending on the job) etc.

For example, say you have a degree in "Mathematics (Computing)". Even though your age was hidden and work history truncated to hide how long it is, the fact that you got your degree back before Computer Science was even a thing gives the game away. Even just the phrasing you use can give away that you graduated long before more recent trends.

This has been understood for a while now, and it's a difficult problem to solve. And even if you can somehow obfuscate CVs effectively, eventually there is going to be a face-to-face. When you think that even things like a bad Skype connection can scupper your interview, you start to see how arriving in a wheelchair could throw people off or how subtle differences in the way women (and many men) talk can make them seem less "confident" or whatever.

The only real solution anyone has found is to normalize those things until they stop becoming a subconscious issue. Nordic countries are leading the way but it is very hard to do in some cultures.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't normalize the abnormal.

Re: Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Liberals are fucking racists sexists pigs. You have given us a perfect example of why we need to put a stop to their constant lies and bullshitting.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

People aren't equal. Social science is rife with poor statistics, awful controls, unrepeatable experiments and outright fraud. The Nordic countries have tried this experiment and demonstrated conclusively that when you remove barriers, biology maximises and women avoid science and maths.

Add all that lot up, and feminists have to either admit they are completely wrong or slander and insult anyone who dares point out reality.

P.S. Blind hiring demonstrated that we discriminate against men and in favour of women - by any/all of the measures that feminists routinely employ. It's tell you want to ignore them when they aren't in your favour.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

"got your degree back before Computer Science was even a thing gives the game away"
Anyone getting a Degree in mathematics before CS was a thing would be in their 80's. Not that it matters because the mathematics that CS is built upon hasn't changed in a +100 years. Binary was not conjured up after computers were invented. And this AI idiot bot will be shit canned because if you remove all race, gender, and age determinations from it's input or you will end up with an increase in the number white males hired across the IT landscape. It's now become politically incorrect to hire anyone in the IT world based solely on their experience, work history, education, and competence. There are quotas to meet. There are sensitivity training classes to organize. There are press releases to be written proclaiming how diverse a companies workforce is.

Re:Blind hiring

[denzacar]

On the other side of that...
If you are forced to talk to a bot at an interview - might as well keep on looking for a job.

Cause a company won't use a bot on account of a "more just" hiring process.
They'll use a bot cause it is cheaper and more efficient to buy or rent a software tool than to hire another human tool.
Which is what they are looking for. Disposable tools, needed to solve their current problem. Not employees.
They want things, not people.

Also, it indicates that the company is held afloat on bullshit and buzzwords.
Cause it's clearly not running on the strength of its teams - or someone running a team or working in a team would be interviewing you, to see how you fit into their team.
Unless the teams and the company are also run by chatbots. In which case at least the daily meetings would be more productive.

Re:Blind hiring

[AmiMoJo]

Indeed. I'm lucky that I can be picky about what job I accept, and using bots, silly tests or other daft interviewing techniques is a sure sign that I don't want to work there.

Unfortunately, for some people that's a luxury they don't have, and they are the ones who need protection the most.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

>I'm a feminist

Where have you deposited your testicles?

Re:Blind hiring

[AmiMoJo]

Sorry guys I forgot that "I'm a feminist" is your trigger phrase.

Re: Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

My wife says that men who openly call themselves feminists are always predators, and that tracks with my experience as well.

You're a lot like Harvey Weinstein. Constantly virtue signaling, and probably have a few roofies in your wallet ready to drop in a drink at a moments notice.

It's not that we think men who are inclined to feminist ideals are sex traitors. It's that we, being males, know a sleazy rapist piece of shit when we see one... And you're obviously that.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

It's now become politically incorrect to hire anyone in the IT world based solely on their experience, work history, education, and competence. There are quotas to meet. There are sensitivity training classes to organize. There are press releases to be written proclaiming how diverse a companies workforce is.

^ This

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

As any numeric analyst can tell you, you can normalise the subnormal. Just multiply by 2^55.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Feminists are complete freaks in the sack, as you would know if you've ever tried. Self-confident women tend to be less inhibited. My testicles have been in some wonderful places.

Re:Blind hiring

[bane2571]

This is basically what I thought. I really don't want to work with/for an idiot that thinks facial recognition on a bot is a good way to screen for anything. What if the candidate is disfigured or has some other non-normal facial structure, let alone maybe the connection is bad and the visuals get scrambled or any number of other factors.

Sure humans are biased and a "mathematical" way of finding the best new candidate would be nice but even the idea of comparing to an existing workforce is god awful - the best new employee you hire is often the one that is different from your existing team because new ideas and processes tend to promote efficiency.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Freaks maybe, but the fact that you are the fluffer in the relationship is not something to be proud of.

Re: Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Your wife knows everything about loser men, and they has not helped her stop the habit, obviously.

Re:Blind hiring

[vlad30]

They said it in the summary they used there best employees to make the template for what they want in an employee lets guess what the best employees were.

And today, One of my supervisors sent a worker home likely not to return after starting a disgraceful shouting fit that had nothing to do with work (more to do with conspiracy theories go figure) Last week was a no show on 3 days (didn't wake up to go to work) and his parting words he was sent home due to favouritism and racism he is 1/8 aboriginal and quite honestly no-one knew until he told us. Now I know full blood aborigines that do better, however truth they are rarer. 2 weeks ago I let go a 19 year old white male also didn't show and when he did his facebooking,snapchatting, instagramming phone would be constantly going and this is something that more and more white kids are failing at

So no we don't have racist views we expect a certain level of work, decorum, and respect on the job leave your crap at home, The AI I assume is probably working out the same and can pick this nuances from there answers to be honest I'm starting to pick this up better as well but as the turnover rate increases the most common complaint I hear from employers is the quantity of applicants you go through now to find a good one

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

My recommendation: start your own company and eventually buy the bigotted bastards.

Re:Blind hiring

[rtb61]

This story is actually about disposable workers. Years and years ago, interviewing employees always expensive, staff members unproductive whilst doing that to ensure best possible selection. Not that bad an investment because you could have the new employee for life. Now disposable workers, hmm, no work for you after 2:00 pm today probably not for a few weeks, fired at 2:00 pm, fuck off don't need you, don't care you worked last weekend for free, will auto-hire someone else when we need them.

Making it cheaper to hire workers, so it is easier to fire them.

Re: Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Well your spelling and the fact that people are no shows at work should tell you something about your workplace.

I left software. The industry is saturated with retards.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

When everyone is made to be equal, we all lose.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

We are sorry that "White Men" is your trigger phrase.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

Is full time social justice crusader on twitter considered a job now?

Re: Blind hiring

[guruevi]

Bots already filter out your resume long before you get called to an interview. Those bots are explicitly programmed not to look for names and yet they still don't hire 50% black, 50% Asian and 50% whites.

Re:Blind hiring

[thesupraman]

Oh for fuck sake Ami, stop peddling your lies here.

What the blind hiring trials showed is that, when a sign of GENDER was completely erased, more men still got hired.
Peraps, just perhaps, they appeared to be better and more professional candidates, and were then selected.
But no, you have to try and change the concept to age for some reason, and then, with zero actual evidence, claim we need things 'normalised'.

But, on to your largest screwup.
Go and have a look at the employment stats for your loved Nordic countries.
You will find the 'bias' in employment is even HIGHER than the US.
VERY few males in nursing, VERY few males in teaching, VERY few women in engineering or technology.
You know why? Because men are less interesting in some careers, and women are less interested in others.

Yes, I know you would like to force them all to be 50/50, because you believe in totalitarian force, but remember, that means you will be forcing
women to take jobs they dont actually WANT. I would call that highly sexist.
What about the huge number of women you will have to displace from nursing and teaching? I guess you can 'help' them by pushing them in to
construction and garbage disposal? Huge male bias in those areas.

So no, I wont accept your totalitarian dream of controling everyone elses lives, because I actually believe in personal freedom and equality, not
enforced quotas.

Re:Blind hiring

[AmiMoJo]

they appeared to be better and more professional candidates

See, you do actually know what the issue is. They appeared better, when empirical evidence suggests they were not.

That's the basic issue with job interviews. Limited time and opportunity to accurately measure ability and performance in the job, combined with subconscious biases leads to sub-optimal decision making. Even if you don't care about equality, from a business perspective it's a failure to not always select the best candidates.

Re:Blind hiring

[KiloByte]

Sorry guys I forgot that "I'm a feminist" is your trigger phrase.

Well yes, because reasonable feminism seems to be extinct. I can't say a single good word about an alleged "human" that disagrees with First Wave. The Second Wave was also pretty sane, at least excluding its last parts. But the Third Wave are hostis humani generis and need to be stopped at all costs. Fourth Wave looks like a joke that most but not all of its preachers are aware of.

Re:Blind hiring

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the many perks of sexual equality is that the fluffing is mutual.

Re: Blind hiring

[denzacar]

explicitly programmed... and yet they still don't hire 50% black, 50% Asian and 50% whites.

And I think I know why...

Re:Blind hiring

[denzacar]

Sure humans are biased and a "mathematical" way of finding the best new candidate would be nice but even the idea of comparing to an existing workforce is god awful - the best new employee you hire is often the one that is different from your existing team because new ideas and processes tend to promote efficiency.

"Mathematical" sifting of candidates is biased against the future.
That's the point of interviews - for the employer or a "boss" to try to figure out the future potential of hirees based on accumulated experience of working with people, not just based on their "scores".
Otherwise, why bother with interviews? Just look at their grades and maybe give everyone a standardized test.

Had a job interview a Google...

[Anonymous Coward]

... but wasn't a 21 year old recent college graduate from India. So yea, these already exist.

TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: The sick freaks of the left are concerned that AI's will not be front-loaded with the politically-correct amount of anti-white bias, as defined by shrieking fascist moron SJW's.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

Silly American. Your country has no left, you only have right, more right and alt right.

Re: TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm quite left on politics scale, but I'm concerned as well with positive discrimination. Discrimination is never positive, it always causes victims. If I was female with the same set of skills, it would be easy for me to get an extra 50K salary.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

And once again, an anonymous cockmonger adds absolutely nothing of value to the conversation.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

Have a great...

KK. .k. H KK. .k. C KK. .k.
KK. k . I KK. k . L KK. k .
KK k .. L KK k .. I KK k ..
KKk u . L Kkl ux. N Kk lan.
KK k .. A KK k .. T KK k ..
KK. k . R KK. k . O KK. k .
KK. .k. Y KK. .k. N KK. .k.

Hillary for KKK President!

Re: TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

You must really suck at sucking. I thought gigolos got paid more than female prostitutes.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[mjwx]

Translation: The sick freaks of the left are concerned that AI's will not be front-loaded with the politically-correct amount of anti-white bias, as defined by shrieking fascist moron SJW's.

TRANSLATION: I'm angry at an imaginary enemy, have not idea what happens in the real world (because I mainly watch Fox News) and because I use pointless but scary sounding acronyms like "SJW" that I don't even know the meaning of, I'm a complete twat.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

At least you brought in some irony, I suppose.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

The left in the USA is all about turning what was considered anti-social to be mainstream and what was mainstream to be considered anti-social. Homosexuality is a positive example of this (I am not a regressive who wants to shove homosexuals back into the closet.) But, normalizing gender dysmorphia in pre-pubescence is a negative example (that is fucked up). If I say, "men make better engineers, but women are more compassionate to the youth" I might be fired, and no one would defend me. If I take a shit in the womens' room and start calling myself "Susan" I might be (Non-gender-specified)Person of the Year (I have no issue with cross-dressers and transexuals, but I don't think we need to celebrate it. It's patronizing at best and propaganda at worst). These people call themselves "progressives" and I'm afraid of what they're progressing towards. They think it's sexist that if you have a choice between a man and a woman for president not to choose the woman (that's right: when victim ideologies come out to play, they trump everything). How can you even say we have no left with a straight face? We have leftism in droves trying to destroy conventional values and families with serious intensity.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

poooor you

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Dread_ed]

Silly AC from somewhere else. America has no left or right. There are only the the lying subversive Corporatists, the Corporatists, and the blatantly in your face Corporatists.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

That's good, because "left" leads to massive muslim rape gangs and a completely disarmed and vestigal police force that only feels safe patrolling twitter.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[mjwx]

Could the mod show me on this doll where the comment butthurt you?

Modding that down only demonstrates that you don't know what an "SJW" is and the only one trying to enforce Political Correctness... are the ones complaining about Political Correctness gone mad.

Re:TRANSLATION:

[Anonymous Coward]

But they will be. For example BBC would explicitly program this bot to exclude whites.
http://www.westmonster.com/bbc-advertise-another-role-only-open-to-non-white-applicants/
http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/05/07/whites-need-not-apply-bbc-advertises-black-asian-minority-positions/

It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ZorinLynx]

I know somebody looking for a retail job. She would walk into stores and ask if they're hiring, only to be directed to a website where you have to fill out some massive 100 question test and hope that your name is picked by some algorithm for the manager to call and arrange an interview.

She must not fit the computerized profile that the tests are looking for, because she rarely got called back. It's been a frustrating and dehumanizing experience.

My mother said that when she was looking for retail jobs in the 60s and 70s, it was easy as hell. See a "Help Wanted" sign, walk inside, talk to the manager, have a quick interview, and if they liked you, you were hired. You didn't even need a freaking resume. It was a much more sensible experience.

I work in IT and I think computers are neat and have changed the world in many ways for the better. But holy shit have they totally fucked up other things.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe she should have not partied, drank and fucked her way through life?

Unemployment is the lowest in 67 years. You have to be a methed out convicted child rapist to not have a job at this point.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

On the other hand, those personality tests are designed to hire liars.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe she should have not partied, drank and fucked her way through life?

Unemployment is the lowest in 67 years. You have to be a methed out convicted child rapist to not have a job at this point.

Unemployment the lowest in 67 years? Utter BS. Only because we have changed the way we count unemployment to remove a huge number of people from the numbers:

http://www.shadowstats.com/alternate_data/unemployment-charts

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[phantomfive]

My mother said that when she was looking for retail jobs in the 60s and 70s, it was easy as hell. See a "Help Wanted" sign, walk inside, talk to the manager, have a quick interview, and if they liked you, you were hired.

Well, I saw someone do that a few months ago in a smaller store at the mall, so maybe your friend needs to try different places.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

You say dehumanizing as if it is a flaw of the system and not an intentional feature designed to make you feel like a replaceable, disposable cog.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

My mother said that when she was looking for retail jobs in the 60s and 70s, it was easy as hell.

We have let in 20-30 million low skilled workers since then. That's why the supply of low skilled workers is high and exceeds demand.

Another reason for computerizing these hires is to remove the possibility of bias and to comply with regulations. Companies don't want to be accused of civil rights violations, illegal questions, or sexual harassment, and computerized interviews avoid that.

But holy shit have they totally fucked up other things.

This isn't the fault of computers, it's the fault of progressive government policies that backfired.

You want one-on-one interviews? Reduce the supply of low-skilled workers and reduce the stifling regulations and legal risks that surround hiring.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[AmiMoJo]

These forms are often used to actively discriminate, because their operation is opaque and it is extremely difficult to prove anything when the computer says no.

For example, they often ask what your highest level of education is. Never mind if you have decades of experience and professional certifications, if you didn't get an undergraduate degree you get instantly declined. That can make it very hard for people who have the skills but didn't go the traditional university+debt mountain route. You can't even write a cover letter to get your foot in the door.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

So you'll be voting Republican, then?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

These forms are often used to actively discriminate, because their operation is opaque and it is extremely difficult to prove anything when the computer says no.

You are probably right: these forms are probably used to avoid being accused of racial discrimination and to meet diversity quotas and affirmative action goals. That is, they actively discriminate, precisely in order to ensure that they are complying with the law.

For example, they often ask what your highest level of education is. Never mind if you have decades of experience and professional certifications, That can make it very hard for people who have the skills but didn't go the traditional university+debt mountain route.

If you have decades of experience, you have referrals; you don't need to answer computerized questions or forms. If you have neither a degree nor referrals, you are indeed not interesting to most companies.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[PopeRatzo]

Unemployment is the lowest in 67 years.

Unemployment was lower during the Clinton administration, which I'm pretty sure was less than 67 years ago.

See September of 2000, for example:

http://www.macrotrends.net/137...

And that the three main measurements of unemployment, the official overall, the U5 and the U6.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Or, you could say that if you donâ(TM)t have a bachelors degree but another candidate does as well as all the same other qualifications as you that they are a better candidate.

You see most job openings get 100â(TM)s, maybe 1000â(TM)s of applicants. As the hiring manager I donâ(TM)t have time to parse through everything or interview every special snowflake. I have actual work to get done and a department to run.

Your resume is just a piece of paper putting your best foot forward. The entire point is to get noticed and get an interview. All things equal if you are missing things that other applicants have then you arenâ(TM)t going to get that call back.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[AmiMoJo]

If you have decades of experience, you have referrals

Not so much in retail and many other sectors, and especially if you have to move.

It's also hard if you switched careers at some point, or if you just didn't go the usual university route into something like software development but are still able to do it and demonstrate that knowledge. University is not the only way to acquire that knowledge.

There is also just straight up laziness. Retain management jobs that list a degree as a requirement because they can't be bothered to determine if you can do basic arithmetic or check your reading comprehension.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Howitzer86]

The people who depend on illegal immigrant labor also vote Republican. I don't think they have anything to fear from them.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

Free college for all would solve the low skilled worker crisis for 1/3 the cost of a single petty war we carry out on nations who never attacked us or are guilty of anything but having natural resources.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[kenh]

The competition for retail jobs has changed since the 60s.

There was an article a few years ago about a McDonald's franchisee that made the comment that he was hiring only college graduates for counter/other jobs. The press twisted the story to be "you need to have a college degree to get a job at McDonalds". The reality was that when he was hiring he was swamped with applications, the easiest filter was to weed out folks without college degrees, because they earned the wage as an employee without a degree, and a candidate with a degree could work out better (remain with restaurant and work into management) than one without.

You can argue the franchisee should consider all applicants equally, but ina society that values a college degree, isn't a college graduate better qualified?

Should he have gone out of his way to only hire candidates without a degree? How is that fair?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[edtice1559]

Although your comment is quite valid in that the markets for various low-skilled labor do have an effect on each other, very few low-skilled immigrants work retail where English/Spanish language skills are fairly important. They may stock the shelves, though. Most low-skill immigrants work physically demanding jobs that natives won't take like meat processing and agriculture.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DogDude]

Oh, fuck you. What are these horrible, scary regulations that you speak of? Name some.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Wealthy Republicans demand South American (illegal immigrants) slave laborers. Democrats want their votes. Both want unlimited H1B.

The point of the Washington DC class is to drive the cost down to oblivion all while funneling profits to themselves and those they represent. Meanwhile, create A permanent underclass to lock in their vote.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[bungo]

fill out some massive 100 question test and hope that your name is picked

I went for a highly skilled position that also had to jump through hoops on the application form like that. First off, they wanted proof of 20 years experience with the technology. I had more than that, but it doesn't even make any sense, as most things past 10-15 years ago are no longer that relevant (like HP MPE/ix administration, or DEC VAX/VMS 5.0 installation and configuration).

I had to rate around 30 skills on a 1-10 rating, and if I didn't score high enough, I wouldn't get through. The end result of the skills matrix was a single number, and the number had to be higher than a specific value to get to the next stage. Luckily the agent representing me knew this, and knew the client well. She 'updated' my skills matrix, adding in high ratings for skills that I left at zero. When she gave me a copy of my skills matrix, she said not to worry, as otherwise I wouldn't get past the selection process.

In the interview, no-one was surprised that my skills didn't match what was on the paper. It appears that the HR system insisted in having around 30 skills listed, and would normally reject good people.

I didn't get that contract, as they were looking for someone with some more specific skills in a area that I wasn't that strong in - and the difference between me and the other candidate could have been as little as 3 points out of 300, as it was only one specific skill, but one that was more important than most of the others. They kept my CV and said they would consider me for other positions later. I can only assume that no-one would have had a high enough rating to get through HR.

I don't know it the hiring process was automated, or just an HR drone adding up numbers. The whole procedure didn't make sense. The manager that I would have reported to knew the process was terrible, but appeared to have no choice but accept it, but he also did his best to subvert it.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's classism. Way WAY to many people looking for a job more than jobs available. The college degree isn't necessary unless it's a STEM field where the applicant has little experience. But moreover, a degree is buying into a privileged class; it's precisely why people will go in debt over it to acquire one.

Don't have a degree? You have two options: start your own business, or curl up into s ball and die. Frankly, your not needed; most of humanity isn't.

Morals, ethics?? WTF are those??!!!

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

very few low-skilled immigrants work retail where English/Spanish language skills are fairly important

Hence I didn't claim that low skilled workers were directly taking this particular woman's job. But she is a low skilled worker in a glut of low skilled workers, and the fact that she speaks English doesn't give her much of an advantage.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

There is also just straight up laziness. Retain management jobs that list a degree as a requirement because they can't be bothered to determine if you can do basic arithmetic or check your reading comprehension.

Yes, they can't be bothered, because hiring itself takes time and money, and hiring managers have better things to do than to look for people who are qualified despite having inferior credentials.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

Free college for all would solve the low skilled worker crisis for 1/3 the cost of a single petty war we carry out on nations who never attacked us or are guilty of anything but having natural resources.

Free college doesn't turn low skilled workers into high skilled workers.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

What are these horrible, scary regulations that you speak of? Name some.

Regulations that make it illegal to ask questions about children, marital status, gender, ethnic origin, etc. Legal practice that gets companies sued simply for not hiring enough minorities.

Oh, fuck you

Thanks for the offer, but I prefer my men a little smarter than you are.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

About 90% of the Mexicans we have working for us simply can't learn English. We have a pretty high turnover of people since we give them six months and pay for an ESL class for them, and if they still don't know the ~100 words they know to do their job, we let them go. I'm pretty sure it's less than 10% of Mexicans that can learn a few English words in six months. How are you proposing college would help those people? It won't.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[RandomFactor]

College isn't free. Wars end.

Entitlements are forever.

Making University a part of public education would be funded by increasing the multi-generational debt incurred by all the "free" things the taxpayer is already on the hook for. It would also push much skilled hiring to the graduate school level thereby delaying entry into the workforce. If everyone has a batchelor's degree, then noone does. This would have the effect of reducing the working lifetime of employees in skilled labor markets making the country less competitive and potentially offsetting any gains.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

While I agree it says nothing about competence, having a college degree (or technical/trade school degree also covered under free college for all) is the textbook definition of skilled labor. It dosent matter if that's what companies want, hundreds of millions of hirings back this claim.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't learn is right. I work IT for a company that owns several Wendy's franchise locations, and because the founder of our company is from Mexico City, he demands that we only hire Mexicans in the restaurants. Most of the cashiers aren't able to memorize the names of all of the items and the ingredients so they simply don't get orders right. The problem is so bad, we stopped tracking it.

To the GP's point, how are you going to educate someone in college if they can't even remember the damn word pickle?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

They do the ridiculously exploited jobs for no money Americans refuse to do because they believe that they are trying too good for them, deserve a healthy body at 30, and like the idea of being able to eat and keep a roof over thier head working 60 hour weeks. We educate them and we would have a full on agricultural crisis. Let's hope they keep being taken advantage of till robotics takes over or you might find yourself not affording american food or benefiting from us agricultural trade.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

No one said college is free, all other civilized countries offer it free so why is America so behind the rest of the world?

Wars don't end. We have been at war for 20 years, in fact I'm starting to believe we were always at war with East Asia at this point.

There is no such thing as an entitlement. Do you mean the legal agreement where workers paid in over 40 years only to have thier pension stolen and given to management? because if anything is undeserved it's that. Or do you mean the simple safety nets all other civilized countries have because they don't overspend on war profiteering or let companies off the hook on taxes and shift it to the poor?

If you would stop watching Fox News for 5 minutes you might realize the very low incomes of average Americans, compared to these other countries riding the free lunch wagon, despite the American economy being far better is the unfair redistribution of the wealth from the poor to the ultra rich. Stop the gritting and Americans would not only get all that free stuff, but massive returns each year.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[AmiMoJo]

We have let in 20-30 million low skilled workers since then. That's why the supply of low skilled workers is high and exceeds demand.

If nothing else had changed then the economy would have grown enough to create jobs for them. More people means more retail opportunities and services.

What did happen is businesses got more efficient. They need fewer people to do the same work. Electronic cash registers with high speed bar-code readers and a computerized database back-end make processing supermarket sales much faster per employee. Now we have self-service where a single employee can manage a dozen checkouts.

Same in most low skill jobs. Automation, power tools and changes to business practices have reduced the number of jobs in those sectors, while more open up in services that are only recently becoming possible to de-staff.

If anything immigration helped a lot of natives by creating demand for the service jobs they replaced their old manual labour jobs with.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[AmiMoJo]

AI could actually help here. If AI could look at all the applications and find some non-graduates with good skills who were likely to stick around for the long term and work their way up, that would actually be a great benefit to the restaurant over graduates who will leave the moment they can get something better.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DogDude]

It's not illegal to ask candidates about children or marital status. That's a lie.

... but it's a burden to *not* ask somebody what their gender or ethnic origin is? Why is that difficult?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not illegal to ask candidates about children or marital status. That's a lie.

Wrong.

As usual, DogDude displaying his arrogance, ignorance, and ineptitude as a business owner.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

I am now working as an electronic tech at a small manufacturer, in a niche market. China and Japan seem to have no interest in mking what we produce. There are a few people upstairs who stuff boards and build wiring harnesses. The guy who designs the circuits, writes the firmware and lays out the boards has an office up there. I do repairs on units from the field and also do component level troubleshooting and sometimes production stuff when it's slow. We are a nationallly known manufacturer and the company has nine employees, including the owner/founder. I found out and applied for the job because there was a physical 'electronic technician' sign hanging from the main company sign in front of the building.

Old school tech jobs still exist. You have to look away from your browser's window to find them.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Free college would be embarassing. A shocking majority of the public would refuse because they are too stupid and/or lazy to attempt it. I moved to a more-rust-belt area of the country about 17 years ago. There are really beligerant stupid people here, and a weird sort of calvinism where the work ethic is strong, but ambition is viewed with suspicion. Most of my in-laws have only a high school education. One nephew who got a full athletic scolarship dropped out when it became clear he'd not become a sports pro after college.

Free college would be great for some, but it would mean nothing to a depressingly large group of people.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

> Most low-skill immigrants work physically demanding jobs that natives won't take like meat processing and agriculture.

I object to "wont't take". The lawncare workers in my old town were all Americans until illegals flooded into the area. Employers couldn't pass up all that cheap labor.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

> is the textbook definition of skilled labor

Nope, that's one definition. SMH

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DNS-and-BIND]

Natives "won't take" such jobs because they're underpaid and dangerous, due to the massive number of illegals working for less than minimum wage. If industry had to pay prevailing wages and adhere to all US laws, magically people would appear out of the woodwork to staff those jobs.

If we actually have a shortage of workers, let Congress determine that this is so and make a guest worker program for them. Apply for the visa in Mexico City, enter America legally, employers pay fair wages, workers receive all US legal protections. Everybody wins. Well, except the shit industries that operate illegal, dangerous work environments, they'd lose. But fuck them.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[radarskiy]

"If you have decades of experience, you have referrals;"

You have referrals mostly from a) the people that just caused you to be looking for work, b) people who failed to hire you when they had a chance to, and c) people who never offered you anything in the first place. If a hiring manager calls your references they are at least going to fish for the reason why you are on the job market. These people have decisions to justify so that they look good if they find themselves looking for work and they lose nothing by throwing you under the bus.

But I'm not bitter.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DogDude]

Yup, I was wrong. Still, it's not a fucking burden.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Kaenneth]

aquitted

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

"All other civilized countries offer it free"
No they don't.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[AmiMoJo]

Interesting. Suggesting that immigrants might not be the cause of all your problems seems to be even more blasphemous than feminism. Such wrongthink is purged even harder than criticising James Damore.

I wonder if I can create some kind of metric to measure this.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[blind biker]

Most low-skill immigrants work physically demanding jobs that natives won't take like meat processing and agriculture.

This is a logical fallacy repeated everywhere around the world, no doubt helped by those with money and power: physically demanding jobs would be gladly taken by "natives" if the pay were attractive. The main reason the pay hasn't been attractive, though, is because of low-skilled immigrant workers accepting lower pay for those jobs.

Logically, there is no actual reason for such jobs not to be paid well, especially if it's hard to find people willing to do them. Simple supply and demand. This is now changing because those jobs will be automatized/robotized, but up until very recently and in many cases still today, the only reason the jobs are paid poorly is because of a large supply of people willing to do them for less money.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, and they're, on average, shit compared to America's colleges.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, I remember when famous people like John Carmack and Wil Wheaton posted to slashdot. Now it's become a right-wing racist sexist circle jerk. This kind of political crap would never have been up voted in the Slashdot of 20 years ago.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Now we all know ooloorie isn't educated.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

It must be, or they wouldnâ(TM)t have bothered to pass a law against it.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

This. Free college for all just turns college into high school part II. The lower half of the bell curve does not profit from that, nor do their smarter colleagues benefit from the dumbing down of the curriculum to make it “accessible” and “inclusive” of the intellectually inferior.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[suutar]

the trick, I think, is that you can do that with places that aren't chains, which are unfortunately getting rarer.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the sixties, a company would recieve maybe 40 applications, running an add for a week in the local newspaper.
Today, a company can expect 200 applications per day, per site the opening is listed on.

I recently listened to a fast food manager lamenting that all job applications go through the corporate website, because it takes longer to fill vacant positions.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[serviscope_minor]

Unemployment was lower during the Clinton administration, which I'm pretty sure was less than 67 years ago.

Not if you add all of the record number of people who were at the most recent presedential inaugration. We may as well assume they were all employed.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

... And then Obama changed how unemployment is measured to hide his incompetence.

It's hilarious that you're now moving the goalposts back to the pre-Obama formula. You're nothing if not dishonest, sleazy, and consistently wrong!

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

To avoid being sued, corporate policy for most organisations is to confirm hire date, leaving date, and official job title.
Personal references are usually ignored by HR, for a different set of legal reasons.
Consequently, across the board, an internal champion is increasingly mandatory, to be hired by a company.

`

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[PopeRatzo]

... And then Obama changed how unemployment is measured to hide his incompetence.

The way unemployment is measured and calculated has not changed since before Ronald Reagan.

This is a common misconception. It's also why I linked to a source that includes the U5 and U6 figures.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

So your argument for subsidizing college education is that it's better than spending the same money trying to kill people?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Natives "won't take" such jobs because they're underpaid and dangerous, due to the massive number of illegals working for less than minimum wage. If industry had to pay prevailing wages and adhere to all US laws, magically people would appear out of the woodwork to staff those jobs.

If we actually have a shortage of workers, let Congress determine that this is so and make a guest worker program for them. Apply for the visa in Mexico City, enter America legally, employers pay fair wages, workers receive all US legal protections. Everybody wins. Well, except the shit industries that operate illegal, dangerous work environments, they'd lose. But fuck them.

Those "shit industries" only exist because people prefer/want/need to pay less for certain goods and services. Generally speaking, to fuck those industries is to fuck the poor.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

No it's a result of conservatives trying to find ways around existing human rights policies. Conservatives refuse to hire non white males and therefore it was necessary to create laws forcing equally. However even when they were forced to comply with laws they tried to find loopholes by hiring token minorities to fill spots, use criteria to claim there were no qualified minority candidates or use other unewual practices like paying lesser wages or falsely claiming numbers that doesn't exist.

Is there a problem with the laws? Sure. However, there is also a huge problem with racism in this country that watered down laws have still yet to address.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a logical fallacy as well. You are assuming that if there was no one locally to do the work for cheap the companies would pay higher wages. However in the real world many companies also either outsource, automate or cut production to adjust for labor costs. Currently the US agricultural industry has benefitted from the low cost labor to the extent that it wasn't necessary to shut down, autonate or relocate. You can see the same issue in the US steel industry that largely hadn't benefitted from low wage immigrant labor. While the salaries for workers are high the employment numbers oale in comparison to what it was when the US was flooded with immigrant labor from Europe and Central america in days when xenophobic nationiist rhetoric didn't make immigration a large concern.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

*hiring managers* have better things to do than hiring.
Got it.
Like surfin the 'net, and clockin' out at three.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Pseudonym]

What did happen is businesses got more efficient.

This is a nice way of saying that most the remaining low-skill jobs got outsourced to other countries (the rest being in the process of transitioning to the "gig economy"), and all the remaining inconvenience and cost was pushed onto customers in the form of increased waiting times, hidden fees, self-service, etc.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

A number of years ago, when Alabama was cracking down on immigrants, it expereinced a shortage of workers willing to pick crops, and the farmers found that they *could not pay enough* to get the local native-born low-skill workers to pcik the crops.

IOW, they ain't taking jobs that the locals want to do under any wages

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder if I can create some kind of metric to measure this.

It exists already, the Rand and Anti-Rand.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

Here is an example from today. 97 workers arrested by ICE from a meat packing plant, jobs no American wants because of how brutal they are, yet we all depend on their labor for cheap meat.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

> they can't be bothered to determine if you can do basic arithmetic or check your reading comprehension

Twas a time when having a high school degree would have told them this about you. Before we decided that flunking kids is racist and we have to teach to standardized tests (which school administrators quickly figured out how to game by getting copies of the tests early).

Schools serve two purposes and two masters. They teach students things (serving the students and their parents), and they publicly rate and rank students (serving their future employers). Under "progressive" policies driven by periodic trumped-up phony "education crises", public schools abandoned the second mission.

This shifted the burden of rating to the students and their families, who now have to go into un-dischargeable personal debt to get a degree which certifies that they will show up every day on time, execute moderately complex tasks because an authority figure tells them to, and will not steal or get into brawls which damage office equipment (i.e. the most basic "soft skills" required of an entry-level employee). Thus, we have creeping workplace credentialism, the fake requirement for a college degree to get a high-school level job, just to filter out socially-promoted illiterates, losers, and criminals.

Thanks, leftists and bi-partisan opportunistic education reformers!

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Flunking students is racist, and so is the so-called discipline, not to mention other forms of bigotry.

And those tests are garbage in general.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[dryeo]

That's how it mostly works in Canada. Fly in people from Central America to work the fields, house and pay them $15 an hour and fly them back home.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

The definition of college is that of an institution of higher education or of higher learning. Itâ(TM)s trade schools that traditionally teach job skills.

Colleges tried to rebrand themselves as institutions that prepare people for the job market, but they are poor at that. Colleges these days are a simple way of credentialing that you have above average IQ and a reasonable ability to put up with boredom and tedium. Actual skills you need to learn on the job.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

Youâ(TM)re right that if you add 20-30 million low skill workers to an economy, the economy grows in absolute terms and they find jobs. But the per capita wealth and productivity goes down, and thatâ(TM)s what determines the overall wealth and well being of a society.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

Yes, it is a burden. Big companies have thousands of people who conduct job interviews, many themselves not very skilled or educated. If any one of them accidentally asks an illegal question, they face multimillion dollar lawsuits and public outrage. In fact, with the latest âoeimplicit biasâ craze, companies are worried that they are accused of bias even if they subject their interviewers to extensive legal training.

To avoid that risk and to be able to document to any court or OCR bureaucrat that their selection process is unbiased, companies move to automated interview systems. Unintended consequences of well meaning but poorly thought out legislation.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[vlad30]

Your mother probably got to speak to the owner this still happens in small business but anything larger HR and government regulation precludes this type of hiring

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[tlhIngan]

My mother said that when she was looking for retail jobs in the 60s and 70s, it was easy as hell. See a "Help Wanted" sign, walk inside, talk to the manager, have a quick interview, and if they liked you, you were hired. You didn't even need a freaking resume. It was a much more sensible experience.

Those still exist, but you have to branch out from chains and franchises and into mom and pop. Yes, there are still mom and pop stores, and many still are in malls with big chains in them. Their help wanted signs are honest and you can go in and ask. If the store gives you a website, it's not a mom and pop.

They are easy to tell - mostly because the decor is rarely uniform - typically consisting of furniture pieces acquired over time and thus, mismatched. If a store is shiny and new and has display cases all alike, it's generally not.

Of course, they generally also require more flexibility so while you'll get a rough schedule, sometimes it may adjust (usually you'll get a text or such asking if you can come in an hour early or stay until closing).

And yes, now that I think about it, I patronize several mom and pop shops.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

You missed the part about bias by algorithm.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

You're saying that education doesn't work, then. I suppose it depends on the field, but I personally wouldn't put my life in the hands of a doctor, a lawyer, or an engineer who hasn't gone to school.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[avandesande]

Americans will work in a meat packing plant if you pay the enough.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama doesn't dictate how the U series of numbers is calculated. No president does, really. Economists do.

Source: studies econ, the numbers are the same as they were, for many years. I think the last time any significant change was done to them, it was the 70s. Could be 80s.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[mjwx]

Most low-skill immigrants work physically demanding jobs that natives won't take like meat processing and agriculture.

This is a logical fallacy repeated everywhere around the world, no doubt helped by those with money and power: physically demanding jobs would be gladly taken by "natives" if the pay were attractive. The main reason the pay hasn't been attractive, though, is because of low-skilled immigrant workers accepting lower pay for those jobs.

It isn't a logical fallacy.

Immigrants tend to take jobs that otherwise wouldn't exist. Tories in the UK love to complain about Johnny Foreigner coming over here to take jobs and strangle the NHS but dont ever think twice about paying the Polish lady to clean their house for them, the Romanian to wash their car and the Bulgarian who does mows their lawn far less than a Briton would accept. What many of these slightly upper middle class complainers fail to realise as they talk out one side of their mouths about the evil immigrunts, is that were all the Romanians, Poles and Bulgarians were to suddenly up sticks and go home because they cant work here any more, they'll have to start cleaning their own homes, washing their own cars and mowing their own lawns.

I'm an Australian who lives in the UK. In Australia we're free of these evil foreigners who are willing to work for less than an Australian would. So I used to wash my own car because an Australian asked A$50 p/h, vacuum my own floors because an Australian charged A$30 p/h and mercifully, the housemate did the gardens (claims he enjoyed it). Now I live in the UK, a housekeeper once a week is included in the rent, I can pay a paltry £7 to get my car washed and gardening is someone else's problem too (the landlords). Point in short, British people wont start doing these jobs, the jobs will simply disappear because most people cant afford to pay what a British person will ask.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

If you pay them enough, but don't change how the economy works, all it would do is make the meat unaffordable and the plant would close or dramatically scale back operations. There is a solution, but simply forcing the plant to pay more isn't it alone.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DaveV1.0]

Or, you could be ignoring a common cause. Why don't you tell us your friends background?

• Is the store hiring? They may not be hiring but have a standard response of 'Job Kiosk"
• Does she have a criminal record?
• Is she over-qualified for the position she is seeking?
• Is she seeking a specific shift to accommodate school, another job, etc.?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[edtice1559]

$15/hour is more than the average US farm worker makes. At that price, we might have more native uptake.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Type44Q]

Free college for all would solve the low skilled worker crisis for 1/3 the cost

Then we can all manage and supervise each other... in complete equality! ;)

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

So, you like people not being about to get jobs because of illegal aliens taking many low skilled jobs that force those lower skilled citizens and legal aliens with work visa to apply for a shrinking pool of retail jobs, thus lowering pay and increasing unemployment then?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[edtice1559]

A guest worker program is something that we've talked about for a long time but it has never materialized. It would be a great, cost-effective solution to many problems including putting the "coyotes" out of business.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[edtice1559]

Back to my original comment on agriculture, there is a huge complaint in the US that people can't afford to eat fresh fruits and vegetables. Immigrant pickers make about $7.50/hr. If we doubled the price and got natives to take those jobs, fresh produce would quickly become a luxury that only the rich can genuinely afford. (Right now people can actually afford it if they managed their money better)

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DaveV1.0]

No, it would not "solve the low skilled worker crisis". First of, the "crisis" you claim is due to an oversupply of low skilled workers. Most illegal aliens are low skilled workers. Most citizens and legal immigrants who are low skilled did poorly in school and should not be in university courses. Finally, assuming you could get all those low skilled workers to graduate from university, you end up with a glut of degree holders who can't find a job because the degrees they obtained will either be a) the easiest to get or b) the degrees themselves will be devalued because everyone has one.

You really didn't think this through, did you? That is rather obvious by what you spout at the end.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Type44Q]

that natives won't take like meat processing and agriculture"Natives won't take??" Who the fuck do you think worked those jobs before there were so many "illegal, disposable employees" available? Those paid a lot more (obviously adjusted for actual inflation) and yeah, beef cost more (it also tended to be far higher quality) but that was okay, because "low wages" were enough to live on... and possibly even get somewhere in life.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Type44Q]

Sorry for my sloppiness; I'd intended to lead with the following quote:

Natives won't take??

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Attila Dimedici]

I know someone who was working a management job for one company that was eliminating the division for reasons that had nothing to do with the success of this person (they decided that they could make a better return on their money by investing it in a different division of the company so were liquidating his division). Another company was desperate for someone to manage a similar division and was going to offer him the job...until they discovered that he did not have a bachelor's degree.
In this case, the hiring manager had FOUND someone qualified, but because he did not have that piece of paper they ended up hiring someone with the piece of paper who was less qualified (I was very familiar with the industry in question at the time, there were no other companies of similar size in the area in that industry and there was no way they were going to pay someone to relocate for the position).

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Any proof of your assertion that Americans turned down those jobs, or does it just the narrative?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

Yes, but more specifically we spend blood and treasure only to enrich millitary contractors and American corporate interests abroad which socialized the costs and privatizes the profits. The tens to hundreds of thousands of foreign civilians killed directly, and the millions indirectly through unnecessary sanctions, only helps perpetuate the business model while steadily eroding civilian world support for America.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[burtosis]

It's not forced equality, nor equality of outcome. Simply equality of opportunities, something staunch conservatives agree with along with the more clear headed liberals.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[dryeo]

Well this is $15 CDN in one of the most expensive places in N. America. OTOH, minimum wage is closer to $11 I think, it's been going up lately.
The real problem is that for it to be worth the farmer paying, the workers have to be fast and often the natives just aren't. I tried some farm work years ago and no matter how I tried, I couldn't keep up.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

In the 70's the average store was not part of an (inter)national corporation that required all hiring to go though their centralized HR department.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

No it wouldn't.

Fixing high-school so it teaches useful trades (plumning, auto-mechanics, programming, nursing, etc.) and basic life skills, rather than being a college prep treadmill would help.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

One thing I've read about those quizes is that you always answer one end or the other for all those strongly aggree, agree, neutral, disagree, strongly disagree questions because that's what the bot wants. No idea how accurate this is since I refuse to consider any job that does this bullshit.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[edtice1559]

Those jobs simply weren't worked. We didn't eat foods that required as much manual labor/calorie. (i.e. you can forget fresh blueberries). https://www.beachbodyondemand.... Maybe it would be better for health to go back to the diets of the 1970s or before. And maybe it would be better for society. But the consequence would be a switch from fruits to canned potatoes.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

I call BS, no way a McDonald's would prefer to hire and train someone who is more than likely to leave after a few weeks for something better.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps we should practice what we preach, and not allow corporations to exploit people for cheap prices. Perhaps that's the cost of humane treatment of workers.

Perhaps actually enforcing immigration law and deporting these illegal indentured servants will cause innovation, increased safety, increased wages, and automation of jobs "nobody wants to do" but must be done regardless. Allowing them to be done by humans subject to informed consent for the market rate is fair. Allowing the illegal importation of humans who have no knowledge of workers rights to do unsafe work for the cost of survival is slavery by another name.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

So what are you saying? Companies make bad decisions all the time. In this case, company B was out a potentially good employee. Or maybe they were not. They'll have to live with the consequences of their choice.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

You need to network more, take part in professional organizations, develop a circle of friends and acquaintances and project partners.

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[avandesande]

How much does labor go into cost of meat... 5%? So labor takes 8% and meat is suddenly unaffordable?

Re:It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[Attila Dimedici]

What I am saying is that the hiring manager did not save any time by only hiring people with a degree. That rule actually cost the hiring manager time. And it is often the case. Any rule which is enforced without analysis of how it impacts the job will have negative consequences. Most companies which have a rule about only hiring people with degrees have failed to analyze the rule's impact on the quality of people they hire.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DogDude]

... or the companies could just hire qualified people or train them to do interviews properly. It's not hard to come up with a list (on a piece of paper) that says:
"Do not ask applicants these questions:"

The legislation is fine. It's not the fault of the legislation that some companies are so poorly managed they cannot follow these admittedly very simple regulations.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[kenh]

Here's the link, from huffpo, but it was widely reported at the time...

Also, if something better were available, why would a college graduate apply at McDonald's?

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

The legislation is fine. It's not the fault of the legislation that some companies are so poorly managed they cannot follow these admittedly very simple regulations.

They are following the regulations: they have eliminated all human bias from the screening process. You simply don't like the way they are doing it. That's not their fault.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[DogDude]

I don't care how they do it. I'm saying that your story about "stifling regulations" is simply untrue.

Re: It's absolutely ridiculous and dehumanizing

[ooloorie]

Well, as I was saying:

You want one-on-one interviews? Reduce the supply of low-skilled workers and reduce the stifling regulations and legal risks that surround hiring.

The fact remains that big companies hiring low skill workers are increasingly using computerized interviews. Nothing you have said contradicts my statement that they are doing this because of "regulations and legal risks that surround hiring". You have offered no other explanation. All you are doing is throwing temper tantrums.

I'd be glad to be interviewed...

[Anonymous Coward]

...by a racist anything. At least I could be sure I wouldn't be working in an affirmative action dump or an SJW infested hell-hole.

Re: I'd be glad to be interviewed...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. When the Liberals get done with this, the bot will start by assigning your a fairly computed score. This will then be adjusted by Social Privilege factors, so for example you'll automatically be deducted points for being Male, white, or Asian, and given points for being female or black. Double points added for being transgender.

Nope.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck you and that bot. I will work elsewhere. If employers find that they are getting the top 10% of the bottom 5% who will tolerate such nonsense they will probably rethink it.

Is there any other kind of bot?

[nitehawk214]

Really it's the people that assign the parameters of the bot, not the bot itself.

Bender?

[TJHook3r]

Am imagining a humourously un-PC bot interviewing me, please let this happen!

Re:Bender?

[Pseudonym]

"Let's just burn your job application and say we dumped it in the sewer."

Re:Bender?

[SeaFox]

Better question: If you're being interviewed by a bot, would it recognize if you were wearing a mask?

This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Pinky's Brain]

White men program it, so it can't be fair ... god fucking damn hypocritical sexist, racist twat.

PS. I have no problem with the sexist and racist part, I think everyone should have complete freedom of association, I only take exception with the hypocrisy.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[AmiMoJo]

It doesn't actually say that though, does it? It says that the training data set is flawed.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Pinky's Brain]

"because most programmers are white men, these AI are actually often trained using white male faces and male voices"

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[religionofpeas]

Or the whole concept of "pick someone that looks like someone else you know is good" is flawed, because it discriminates against people that are different but still good, no matter what training set you use.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Odd that we didn't have this type of discussion regarding inherent biases when it was mostly female HR people. Only when it's white males does it all of a sudden become an issue. Almost as if it weren't about inherent biases, but instead some sort of agenda against a particular sex and race. But such an agenda would be sexist and racist by definition, so surely it can't be that!

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Will you show up on time reliably?
Will you randomly decide to leave just because you feel like it?

and other such 'white biased' questions.

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok fine. Go get me a black female programmer. I'll wait.

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I love you. Seriously

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Every method of selection is flawed.

You can interview with a biased AI, or you could interview with a biased person. Or a whole group of biased people with a biased AI thrown in for good measure.

Whatever you focus on during the interview is a tiny subset of the total set of factors that will determine success in your environment. Many of the factors can't be tested by anything but time.

A few years ago Google publicly stated that the famous amount of effort they had been putting into their interview process was largely wasted; that they had still not figured out how one can predict success with a few hours of examination. No, some AI is not going to change that, because the question "will this person succeed in this environment" is simply not reliably answerable with the limited set of data that you can gather during and before an interview.

You can screen out a whole heaping lot of obvious failures; but among the set of realistic potential candidates the end result may as well be a random guess.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[AmiMoJo]

White men program it, so it can't be fair ... god fucking damn hypocritical sexist, racist twat.

"because most programmers are white men, these AI are actually often trained using white male faces and male voices"

They identified an issue with the data and it's likely cause... and you somehow took that to mean that the author was blaming the developer's race and gender, rather than the poor quality of their work.

Anyone who understands AI will tell you that your training data needs to be representative of the data the AI will operate on and the decision making criteria. The people building these things are incompetent and made ridiculous assumptions, and the author is calling that out by explaining their mistakes.

It seems like criticising a white male these days will instantly bring out people screaming sexism and racism and hypocrisy, which is rather ironic.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[AmiMoJo]

Actually, we do. Studies have found that even having a female dominated HR division still tends to favour men in most instances. Counter-intuitive if you are the kind of person who assumes genders will "stick together" and are inherently biased in favour of their own, but anyone familiar with the past century of academic work on the subject will be unsurprised.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[JaredOfEuropa]

Sounds like the author doesn't know a great deal about this issue, which is real. The problem isn't training on or by white men. The problem is that the program is being trained to find good employees from the available candidates using whatever data it has at its disposal, regardless of whether any individual data point actually has any causal relationship with the candidate's fit. For instance: it knows that the majority of applicants from troubled neighborhoods score poorly, and it also was given (or even collected by itself) data on the demographics of such neighborhoods. It may then decide: "if skin tone > x, don't bother". Even without a causal relationship, that can still be a valid conclusion from a statistical standpoint, but it's one that we as a society deem "not ok". The problem is that such a rule wouldn't be programmed explicitly, it would be inferred form the data and it might not even be possible to find out if such a bias is being applied.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[demon driver]

So, fine, you seem to be capable enough to copy and paste a sentence, but did you even read it?

Hint: not to describe how an effectively racist and sexist situation comes to happen is racist and sexist, that situation is. And no-one even called those responsible for it racist or sexist.

Seems your problem is on the bottom of the "I have no problem with the sexist and racist part" statement.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[demon driver]

This isn't even about biases. It is about data, and about the fact that those who develop and train the AI often have to resort to white males to train it with, because that's what is predominantly to be found in those fields.

Funny how reliably antifeminists make fools of themselves in these discussions.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

*its likely cause

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[fafalone]

In this case the implication is clear. It is saying that representative training data exists, and that white male programmers purposefully choose training data that is not representative. Otherwise, this would be a straight criticism of the training data, where the race of the programmer (which, let's be honest, is just as likely to be Asian or Indian) didn't matter. Who makes the training data source? What's the available composition? It's a huge leap to 'white men are only picking pictures of other white men'.
People like you are the other side of the problem, excusing comments that clearly are calling white men racist/sexist when there's no cause. Keep it up, I'm sure it won't have any consequences say, 2 years from now.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[burtosis]

I think you just described how bias works in human minds as well. That's why statistical correlation can be racist, it's often a statistical fact that applies generally. However if the algorithm can't evaluate an individual in a nuanced way based on thier specific abilities and attributes it's no better than just using racism, sexism, and general stereotypes.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[edtice1559]

The interesting thing is, of course, we can probably teach a chat bot to get rid of implicit biases where that may be very hard in the case of some humans.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[AmiMoJo]

In this case the implication is clear.

Apparently not. You seem to think that the author is implying this was deliberate. It's not, it's just a known issue caused by centuries old systemic problems that we need to carefully avoid perpetuating with bad AI.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[joe_frisch]

Its not a problem of who does the programming. The basic problem is the AI confusing correlation and causation. So historical bias that shows up as a correlation can result in continued or increase bias.

If you go to a high tech company you are likely to see a high percentage of young White and Asian males. That could lead to an AI correlating those attributes with programming skill, and giving a bias in favor of those groups, rather than just ignoring race and age, and hiring the most qualified.

An additional problem is that even if race, age, gender etc are not included in the training set, machine learning can pull out the correlations of those with other parameters, and still decide based on these (now hidden) variables.

This isn't the result of some dark conspiracy to put bias in the system, just a result of statistical correlations in training sets. (this may also be an important cause in some human bias - but that is a bigger question).

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Cederic]

A few years ago Google publicly stated that the famous amount of effort they had been putting into their interview process was largely wasted; that they had still not figured out how one can predict success with a few hours of examination.

Is that what triggered their switch away from trying to hire the best people to implementing what appear to be very sexist racist policies?

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[angel'o'sphere]

I have to admit, I'm a bit sexist, too.
I like girls. They make me much more hot than boys or any make.

And I have to admit, I'm a bit raciest, too! As I prefer coloured girls over white girls, in perhaps a 55 : 45 ratio.
And I like small girls over tall girls, but still some tall girls I find exciting.

And I don't like big titts ...

Am I bad?

Oh, and I don't like girls that can not dance. Even more, I hate girls my mother would approve. I prefer the ones she does not approve.

Am I bad?

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I know two black female programmers in our little (12-person) team:

  - One girl is an outstandingly hard worker who's now leading a high-profile project for a customer (and doing the lion's share of the work herself).

  - The other's still relatively new to C++ work, but she's learning very well and will probably be a capable native developer in a year or so (if she doesn't move away for an even better opportunity first).

So, yeah, they exist... and they're pretty good :)

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Freedom of association seems to have been nixed by the Supreme Court. It's obvious that you should be able to hire whoever you want as long as you don't use public funds to do so.

But the Suprme Court ignores rights all the time.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

seems like a big, racist, assumption they're making about the competency of these programmers

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It was actually the United States Congress pursuant to the 14th and 15th Amendment.

They gained the requisite power and obligation.

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[liefer]

I'm curious what makes you say that? Most ML devs I know use standard "face packages" that contain men, women, black, white etc. Nobody uses their colleagues faces

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

"if data is not relevant to the job, then don't give data to the learning algorithm" Seriously, why would you be feeding it information about candidates neighborhoods or their skin tone? Why would you design it so it could collect potentially irrelevant information on its own? The whole point of an AI is to train it on the things that are relevant. The approach your suggestion is like Freakonomics--correlation is not causation, and treating an AI like that will give you garbage results.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like criticising a white male these days will instantly bring out people screaming sexism and racism and hypocrisy

Try criticising any other group in exactly the same way, and see if you get more or less of a response.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[JaredOfEuropa]

The whole point of AI and machine learning is to give it everything we have so that it can give us the best possible answer, at least it is according to the dimwit managers and consultants whose AI strategy is: "we ought to get ourselves some of that". Another word for that approach is "big data" and it's called that for a reason.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the name of this mythical place where most programmers are white males? It is not Silicon Valley or anywhere else in America or Europe.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[fafalone]

The author is singling out a particular sex and race. You're really going to try and tell me the implication isn't that programmers of other races use different training data and therefore don't have this problem? Again, there's plenty of non-white programmers, so why single out white men when there's no evidence their algorithms are more biased than those of others?

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

It seems like criticising a white male these days will instantly bring out people screaming sexism and racism and hypocrisy, which is rather ironic.

So you mean white men are being treated like every other race/gender group? I guess this is a kind of race/gender equality.

"I'm not racist. I hate everyone equally."

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sounds like the author doesn't know a great deal about this issue, which is real. The problem isn't training on or by white men. The problem is that the program is being trained to find good employees from the available candidates using whatever data it has at its disposal, regardless of whether any individual data point actually has any causal relationship with the candidate's fit. For instance: it knows that the majority of applicants from troubled neighborhoods score poorly, and it also was given (or even collected by itself) data on the demographics of such neighborhoods. It may then decide: "if skin tone > x, don't bother". Even without a causal relationship, that can still be a valid conclusion from a statistical standpoint, but it's one that we as a society deem "not ok". The problem is that such a rule wouldn't be programmed explicitly, it would be inferred form the data and it might not even be possible to find out if such a bias is being applied.

A well developed and deployed AI would reduce the cost and increase the efficiency and accuracy of the hiring process. This would mean gathering more information on each candidate and therefore relying less on superficial judgments. Intelligent blacks would have greater prospects under such a system than they do currently.

Also, please spare me the "we as a society deem..." bullshit. I'm a member of society and very often strongly disgree with "we as a society" claims, this being no exception.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a pattern recognition/computer vision researcher. I routinely publish in top-tier conferences, e.g., ICCV, CVPR, ECCV, and ICML.

Many of the popular human-based datasets used in those communities are not dominated by images of white adult males. For example, the Caltech 10,000 Web Faces dataset has hundreds, if not thousands, of images of women, minorities, and children: http://www.vision.caltech.edu/Image_Datasets/Caltech_10K_WebFaces/

Re: This why we shouldn't live together ...

[TapeCutter]

Pro Tip : Read the summary.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yet, you are a stupid one AmiMojo.
Years of your "writing" show it clearly.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[demon driver]

This is not something that can be done with static images for which existing datasets could be used.

Re:This why we shouldn't live together ...

[AmiMoJo]

They are not doing facial recognition though, they are training AI to rank job candidates.

The data set would be something like a set of CVs and responses to questions, plus those people's relative performance in job interviews and in the job itself. That tends to train the AI to be biased against people with different educational backgrounds (e.g. attended an overseas's university) or who speak different dialects of English and the like.

One HR manager for the rest of my life...

[Anonymous Coward]

So, I'll be interviewing against the same HR manager for the rest of my life, and if it decides that I am not fit for a job, it means I'm not fit for it for the rest of my life.

Racist bots are bad

[Anonymous Coward]

But Hitler-loving sex fiend bots are worse https://www.telegraph.co.uk/te...

Someone saw this happening before

[Anonymous Coward]

https://youtu.be/U9uWSHWcHag

Refreshing

[nospam007]

I got tired of always being interviewed by racist white men.

Re:Refreshing

[Anonymous Coward]

I got tired of always being interviewed by racist white men.

And I'm tired of interviewing racist black men.

Re:Refreshing

[Anonymous Coward]

You didn't get the job? Of course they must be racist!

Racist? Don't know the meaning of the word.

[Anonymous Coward]

Unfortunately, it seems the term "Racist" doesn't actually mean anything anymore except a generic bad-word mud-slinging.

Doesn't matter what you do, you are racist these days.
Take for example, this test I had in public school on diversity:
Question: You are a hiring manager and you have two candidates for a job. One black, one white. Whom do you hire?
My answer: Interview both candidates and choose the candidate most qualified for the job.
My answer was marked incorrect. The correct answer is: "You hire the black man"

The whole test was like that. I scored 100% racist. Take that into perspective - I'm a racist because I REFUSE to treat anyone differently by their race. One of the great misinterpretations of Martian Luther King comes from the quote, "...[african americans] are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character" gets warped into "...[african americans] are not judged."

Don't forget that in the last Olympics a coin toss was considered racist because it didn't favor the right race.

So is the chat-bot racist? 100% yes, because it can't see skin color and therefore can't give preferential treatment.

Re: Racist? Don't know the meaning of the word.

[c6gunner]

Don't forget that in the last Olympics a coin toss was considered racist because it didn't favor the right race.

I thought for sure that you were just making shit up, so I googled it. And laughed my ass off. Thanks.

Not to worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to worry, the SJW's will make sure it ends up racist against white and males before long.

https://www.usatoday.com/story...
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/0...
https://www.americanthinker.co...
https://www.theaustralian.com....

more like the daily yeast

[Anonymous Coward]

crap source

ding dong...!

[Anonymous Coward]

PROTIP: If you are against this sort of thing, and want to actually change the world for the better, NOW would be the time to refuse to do any sort of interview in front of a robot/AI.

You're welcome.

Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

the robots in many cases aren't even aware of your race or gender so how are they going to select against your race and gender?

They're clearly NOT deciding on that factor as they literally can't because they're literally not given that variable most of the time.

What they decide upon are your qualifications. Now if the most qulaified people tend to be from group X or Y then that isn't racism to predominantly hire people from those groups. Statistically if you limit the population being examined to those with the qualifications there is no statistical variance in hiring patterns. You only see a statistical variance if you IGNORE qualifications. Which is idiotic because the entire point of setting an AI on hiring people or hiring someone to hire people is to have them filter the people hired based on relevant criteria.

What these "robot HR is racist" arguments ultimately are requesting is lottery based hiring. Where in random people in society are randomly hired for given jobs indifferent to qualifications.

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut is a dystopian society where this concept was applied to its logical conclusion. Everyone is forced to be equal. The clever are made to be stupid so they enjoy no advantage over the stupid. The strong are made to be weak. The graceful are made to be clumsy. The beautiful are made to be ugly. Employment in everything is determined by literal lottery. Total chance. Everything from the police to the president to your doctors to whatever.

It is a nightmare society.

The robots are not racists. The plaintiffs are equalitarian intersectional communists in most cases. The sort of people that advocate bad ideas that if applied lead to the society starving to death.

Any group that votes for that deserves the consequences without mercy. And to be very clear... that happens properly anywhere and those able to do better will leave. You'll be left with an incompetent rabble that simply couldn't do better anywhere else. Poverty and failure is the best you can expect. Literally starving to death is quite likely. Cannibalism is not off the table.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

the robots in many cases aren't even aware of your race or gender so how are they going to select against your race and gender?

They're clearly NOT deciding on that factor as they literally can't because they're literally not given that variable most of the time.

They use proxy factors closely associated with race or gender, care to rework the rest of your post in light of this new information that was in TFS?

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

No they don't. The robots are not programmed to find race and are often not aware of it as a concept in the first place.

If you give a robot a series of resumes and tell it to look for what you want in an employee... the robot has been given no notion of what race even is in the first place.

But you know what... I'll bite.

Cite the racial proxy data that they might use as an example.

Double dog dare you.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

Address, name, employment and education history.

Yes the program can make racist decisions without even being aware of the concept of race, because it was trained on racist decisions which it blindly emulates. Educate yourself: https://www.propublica.org/art...

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

So the argument is that its determining race based on address, name, previous employment history, and education history...

Explain this to me.

Are you saying it doesn't hire people from a certain neighborhood?

Are you saying the program is not hiring people based on their name?

Because either of those seems unlikely frankly.

Now, not hiring someone for lacking job experience is not racism or racial proxy data. Its merely a sensible criteria to hire someone. You want the best employees you can get. An experienced employee is generally better. No?

As to educational background... I'm a little confused about this one. Are you suggesting that hiring or not hiring someone using education data is racist? Because if it is... then why bother with education at all? We'll just hire anyone.

Do you want a doctor with no medical education? A lawyer with no law degree?

Because apparently hiring or not hiring someone on the basis of their education is apparently racist now.

Try again. They do not use address or name information to choose who to hire or not to hire. The algorithms have been examined actually. They have been demanded in court cases. And on examination they didn't do any of that.

What they did was look at job experience and education. Its a bot. Is your argument seriously that the program looks up a name and address, does a look up on the address to find out if it is in a demographically black or whatever area... and then just doesn't hire if it gets a hit?

Is that honestly your argument? Because that can be easily disproven and then you have to eat crow.

Here is the cold grim reality... The "ai" is just filtering on work experience and education. That isn't racist. And again, if you presume to say it is... then please accept medical treatment by this guy with no medical degree.

Everyone wants competent workers except people like YOU that neither care about other people having to deal with incompetent workers nor have the empathy to appreciate how annoying you'd find it if you were saddled with that same situation.

The evidence of your hypocrisy is that you wouldn't tolerate an incompetent worker IF they were serving you. Would you like an electrician with no training or a plumber with no training? How about a vet to take care of your sick dog that knows nothing about how to treat sick animals?

You wouldn't even tolerate it to treat your dog.

That is your "real" position. Everything else is pathetic virtue signaling and hypocrisy.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

So you completely missed the point of the summary that they ARE being programmed ("trained") to find race?
Computers not being aware of race is about as relevant to them discriminating against it as knowing about general relativity was relevant to people in the 18th century for knowing not to drop a hammer on their foot.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

If you'd read my link you might've been tipped off that we're not talking about a small script disqualifying people solely on address or employment history, but a complex program weighting different factors and using them together. For example it might've been trained on data that shows people from a certain geographic area being less likely to be hired (because they're black) so when the program sees that a person is from that area, it decreases that person's desirability score. It sees that certain names are less likely to result in a hire (because they're more common among the black population), and again it decides that person is less desirable. Again with work experience, it might find that working in a warehouse as a first job is less desirable than working at a Starbucks as a first job, although both are equally irrelevant to a programming job, due to the racial proxy factor and being trained on data created with human-generated biases. And of course multiple factors together would have an even stronger effect due to a closer match to what it was trained on.

If you understand how it unintentionally uses this proxy data to replicate the racism it was trained on, it's obvious that the real problem is in the training data and the only way to avoid it in machine learning is to carefully sanitize the training data, a mammoth task that could make the technology impractical. Racism in, racism out.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[angel'o'sphere]

If a person is called Ngy Jim it is obviously not white, or Nakamura Hieroshi or Mbaku Nmabola.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

For example it might've been trained on data that shows people from a certain geographic area being less likely to be hired (because they're black) so when the program sees that a person is from that area, it decreases that person's desirability score.

Why would someone train an AI to repeat decisions humans already made? A shell script can do that.

Inventing straws to grasp. The argument is lost.

If you understand how it unintentionally uses this proxy data to replicate the racism it was trained on, it's obvious that the real problem is in the training data and the only way to avoid it in machine learning is to carefully sanitize the training data

When the data does not support the outcome you want then change the data.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

Proxies are discriminatory for more than just racial reasons. Suppose you're from a geographically troubled area, doesn't matter if you're black or white. Statistically, job candidates from that area do poorly once employed. But you actually overcame your difficult upbringing, worked hard, went to community college (because it was close by and you needed to take care of your sick parents).

Should you get dinged just because some algorithm says that other people in your situation are unqualified?

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

Excellent point, mod parent up.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

So your argument is that the program was configured to filter for those names?

You think there is a name look up table that associates given name types with given cultural backgrounds?

Is that your argument?

Do you HONESTLY think that the program was set up that way. Because I don't believe you honestly think that. I think you're just making up implausible garbage to save a stillborn argument.

The only thing anyone has ever actually proved was this thing from Xerox:
https://www.theguardian.com/sc...
""But the most problematic correlation had to do with geography. Job applicants who lived farther from the job were more likely to churn. This makes sense: long commutes are a pain. But Xerox managers noticed another correlation. Many of the people suffering those long commutes were coming from poor neighbourhoods. So Xerox, to its credit, removed that highly correlated churn data from its model. The company sacrificed a bit of efficiency for fairness.""

Note this was not the result of racism, was not designed to be racist, and only affected "poor neighborhoods" in that the commute was longer.

Any actual evidence of this racism?

I suspect not. We're increasingly a post-evidence society at this point. Just go with your dogmatic belief and then cling to it in the face of all empirical contradiction and absent any evidence.

Such progress you people have made over your old religious past. Truly pathetic.

And if you want to rebut that... find some evidence. Absent that... its sustained.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

To weigh them in the manner you suggest they would have to have built in associations between places and these racial groups.

For your concept to work they would have to do that. Do you have any evidence what so ever that they do this or are you just making things up?

Answer... but we both already know you're full of crap.

Cite proof. The source code can be audited. Surely court cases could demand it. Where is the evidence?

What we both know is that that isn't what is happening. There have been a million studies on this issue. There have been endless fishing expeditions. They have all come up bust. You can show a hiring pattern but the hiring pattern every time is supported by the actual presence of the people with the skills they want to hire.

That means the correlating element is not race... its ability.

Provide a link to one of these programs being set up in the manner you suggest they're all being set up.

You are creating a presumption of guilt environment where the accused must prove their innocence simply on your accusation.

If this is the direction you want to go with law, then you're going to suffer literal witch trials before long. And you'll deserve them.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

If they are not programmed to find race of discriminate on a racial basis then they're not racist.

If instead their bias is against a lack of experience or education and that happens to correlate with given races then that is not racism but a product of those races statistically not having those skills.

If you limit the population pool to ONLY people with the skills cited and ignore the rest of the population that does not have the skills indifferent to race.

And then recalculate your population distribution of employees to the population that has the skills... do you think there would be a statistical variance? If not, then clearly there is no racism.

What you're doing is finding something that correlates with race that is a reasonable hiring criteria and blaming the use of a hiring criteria... like job experience and education... with racism.

That's not intellectually supportable.

Regardless, we're well into the put up or get laughed off the stage phase of the discussion. Can you show any evidence of hiring software with clear racial biases built into them. That is something that is clearly and obviously and indisputably solving for race and then discriminating on that basis?

Because if not... you have an argument about as solid as Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny. By all means, have your little ritual if it makes you happy. But don't expect anyone else to actually believe the fat man is real unless they're six and are expecting presents.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you have any evidence what so ever that they do this or are you just making things up?

Yes. It is in the article. You can review it yourself.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

To weigh them in the manner you suggest they would have to have built in associations between places and these racial groups.

Not in the program, no.

Cite proof. The source code can be audited. Surely court cases could demand it. Where is the evidence?

Like I said, it's not in the program. The program doesn't know that race is a thing, it's not programmed explicitly to be racist, it's just learned to make decisions similar to the ones it's been trained on, which have a racial bias that is only reflected in proxy factors. The program only "knows" that certain values for these proxy factors are bad, especially in combination. But it's not so easy to audit the "source code" of neural networks anyway.

That means the correlating element is not race... its ability.

This would only be true if the training data was completely free of racial bias. If you want to argue that, we'll have to agree to disagree, which I'd be glad to do considering that you're ignoring a well-known problem with machine learning algorithms trained on biased human decisions which I can link to again. But you won't read it, you'll stick your head in the sand and call it a liberal witch hunt. Why, I wonder.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

If they are not programmed to find race of discriminate on a racial basis then they're not racist.

What?

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

Xeros discovered Disparate Impact in their analysis, and corrected for it. Had they not done so,they would have lost any lawsuit relating to racial discrimination.

As far as US Law is concerned, disparate impact is equivalent to intentional discrimination.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[mapkinase]

"white math" is racist.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

That depends on whether the "qualifications required" fields are being populated appropriately. It is possible that bias is added at that stage by requiring qualifications that certain categories of applicants are much less likely to have, even though they may have other qualifications or experience that might more than make up for the shortfall.

Simply applying the same rules to all is not enough to ensure fairness. You also need to review the rules themselves. "In its majestic equality, the law forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, beg in the streets and steal loaves of bread".

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

If the program that controls the operation of the system contains no racist instructions then the program is not racist.

Game over.

Insert coin?

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

We've seen arguments lately that the scientific method is racist and sexist.

So yeah... PC culture is basically going full anti intellectual... probably because it is logically indefensible.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

No, there was no evidence of anything.

Cite it if its there. You'll not be able to. You'll just look at it, be disappointed that your narrative can't be supported, and then throw out an insult or say nothing.

If its there, then it should be really easy to quote it and win. You won't because you literally can't.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

As to disparate impact, its a subversion of common law in that you can't show intent and in fact I don't think anyone in that case is suggesting there was intent.

If something impacts someone more than someone else without intent then that can't be racism. Racism requires a racial bias. There was no racial bias.

There was a geographic bias which just so happened to coincide with a poor community.

And really, if I wanted to address something like that... I'd suspect the way to go would be to simply not hire people that lived that far away from the job. Mission accomplished. Fire some people and your statistical argument goes away. Ironically the people you'd fire would be the people you're trying to help.

Seriously, you want a company to apologize for hiring people that have to commute a long way to work? They applied for the job. They knew where the job was in the first place. By this argument, they shouldn't have been hired.

What a win for civil rights. /s

There was no racism and this lawsuit probably limited opportunities for poor people that desperately need that work. What fucking humanitarians you guys are...

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

Well, the burden of proof is on the accuser to make that argument unless you want to go full witch trial with this one.

Got anything? Or have we inverted the burden of proof in legal proceedings so we can fall entirely into tyranny and then into barbarism?

You do realize that if you invert the burden of proof it won't merely be applied where you want it to be applied.

For example, let us just say you are accused of murder or something. Can you prove you didn't do it? In many cases you won't be able to prove you didn't do it. And that will set the default position to guilty on accusation.

This is increasingly something that the PC crowd are asking for because they're short sighted fools. They think it will only be applied to a rape case or a murder case that they've gotten excited about on facebook.

It won't stop there. The burden of proof must be on the accused or nearly all of us are guilty of everything. We don't have the evidence to prove we didn't do any random thing you make up.

You know this... many deceitful people exploiting this political climate know this as well. But it will destroy our society if you don't stop.

And no one is going to do well when that happens. The people in our societies will suffer and as our societies themselves trend into tyranny and police states... they will become increasingly militaristic and hostile to their neighbors... it will mean the old wars of conquest again. And there will be no society to restrain it... because you killed it for nothing.

You might well claim that is hyperbolic... then present your evidence to support your claim or concede you have no case.

Or if you neither provide evidence nor concede... you validate my hyperbole.

You're fucked any way you go... not my fault. You're the one that fed your own credibility feet first into the wood chipper.

Re: Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

... oh come on...

What I obviously meant:

If they are not programmed to find discrimination on a racial basis then they're not racist.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

To weigh them in the manner you suggest they would have to have built in associations between places and these racial groups.

I'm not sure what your programming experience is, but "AI" based on neural nets is not programming in Prolog. Times, they are a changing!

Cite proof.

There are a number of examples from the last few years that support GP's assertion. (Sorry, last couple may be partially paywalled.)

The source code can be audited.

Not in any meaningful sense it can't, no, because it's not the code that results in the decision, it's the combination of the algorithm & training. Neural nets are essentially 'black boxes', and what goes on inside them to arrive at the decision is a mystery, even to the people that programmed them.

I should point out that I generally agree with most of what you've been saying in your posts on this topic, but, as much as we might wish it otherwise, on this I think the others have a valid point. I'm sure they (the "AI's") will get better but, in the meantime, it's probably wise to maintain a certain degree of skepticism regarding the process & outcomes.

I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.

Yeah, I would, but I've used enough mod points in this thread to tip the balance towards an anonymous post. I can live without a reply anyway as, because I won't get an email informing me of one, I probably won't read it anyway... Whibla.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

Horseshit. If a program makes decisions that are indistinguishable from racist decisions, it's racist. You could even build a program or neural network for the explicit (but only in external documentation) purpose of discriminating against certain races without that program having anything about the concept of race in its code. That wouldn't excuse its racist results.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

This is bullshit anyway. Even if the programmers are white men, a handful of developers can't train an AI, they have to pull from a massive set of data that would presumable include lots of different kinds of people. This whole article is based on an ignorant assumption.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

GameboyRMH has adopted the mantra that qualifications be damned, if you're from a marginalized class you deserve that job over the more educated white man because it's society that has kept you down so far!

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

A statistical pattern of hiring given population groups due to those skills being found statistically in those groups doesn't mean the hiring system is racist.

That is like saying that luxury car sellers are racist because they tend to sell cars to rich people.

By your logic we should hire people with no medical degrees to be doctors if the people being hired as under represented in the medical industry.

Your argument is at best a confession of insanity. At BEST. That is assuming you actually believe what you are saying. I frankly don't. I think you know you're full of crap.

Would you accept a cab driver that didn't pass a driver's test?

Holding people to standards is apparently racist.

Never mind that suggesting that is actually racist on your part at best because we're all humans and we can all achieve the same things indifferent to our race... UNLESS our race actually has a cognitive value to it. Naturally race does not have any cognitive value to it. Being a given race doesn't make you smarter or dumber or better at any given task.

So why harp on race endlessly? Many people of any race are successes or failures. And people that fail and succeed generally do so for very similar reasons indifferent to their race.

People from single parent house holds tend to have a hard time. Single mother house holds are even worse statistically. Poverty doesn't help. Drug abuse doesn't help. Certain neighborhoods have high levels of criminal activity that drags families into multi-generational dysfunction.

We can address those problems because they're not race. Race is a waste of time. It isn't why people are poor or rich.

Look at Asians in the US to prove the point. There was and is racism against asians. And yet asians if anything do better in the US than most if not all other racial groups in the US.

How does your flawed racial narrative account for asians?

Asians prove my point and prove you wrong. Because Asians despite suffering some racism do very well in the US because they have a healthy culture. They have strong family values, they get married and stay married, they raise their children as a family, they indoctrinate their children with good work ethics and good study skills... etc etc etc.

This is all known. We all know this. You know it and I know it.

Which is part of how I know you're just a liar. It isn't about race. Its about ability. And not racial ability but personal ability as developed over your life to prepare for given tasks. If you haven't prepared then you won't have the needed abilities and you won't get hired because you are not what is needed or desired.

It has nothing to do with race.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

As to neural nets, this is totally irrelevant... why would the neural net be racist if it were simply instructed to hire people that had certain job experience and educational backgrounds?

You're just making things up at this point. Self teaching neural nets? Come on. Who do you think you're fooling with this crap? This is pathetic.

As to your link, the Guardian article wasn't addressing hiring software but rather a language association system. It wasn't actually biasing against anyone. It merely saw certain words used in certain contexts and made associations on that basis. Hiring software doesn't do that.

Strike one.

The New scientist article was talking about stop and frisk in New York as administered by HUMAN BEINGS and not computers. There's no citation in that article of evidence of actual racial bias on the part of a computer in that article. What is more, the methodology of how they determined something was racist by the NYPD was not specified. You clearly didn't read your citations.

Strike two.

The article from the Atlantic is referring to accusations made against a court reporter software... the issue was investigated...
https://www.washingtonpost.com...

There are two or three papers I could send you that would explain why the accusation didn't made sense. Fuck it, here they are:
https://www.documentcloud.org/...

http://www.crj.org/assets/2017...

Strike three.

As to neural networks etc... why would the neural network be consistently biased against race X? I mean, if it is unpredictable then that shouldn't be consistent.

Think about it. You're making an argument that relies on some randomness and chaotic behavior and yet the results are very consistent. That makes your position indefensible. You can't argue that these black boxes programmed by different people, given different data sets, and given different critera are all going to be racist against the same group. That makes no sense. Such systems would be as likely to be biased against different groups or fixate on things entirely unrelated to race. I see no justification for the argument that hiring AIs would be racially obsessed and specifically biased against a given ethnic or racial group absent instruction to do so.

This is a translation of the whole "subconscious racism" argument that was spun up when the civil rights vultures ran out of actual racists to attack. So they had to start attacking non-racists otherwise who would need them? Now that we're moving on to machines you have to claim the robots are racists too.

Its sad.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

It's not about ability, it's about race. I think you know you're full of crap because you don't seem to have read the ProPublica article about the criminal sentencing program which also suffers from racial biases. It has nothing to do with what skills happen to be commonly found in what ethnic groups, it has to do with programs making wildly different decisions between people who have very similar relevant data when only race proxy information is significantly different. People who are arguing in good faith don't ignore information and harp on about strawman points like that.

Although your shameless use of textbook "model minority" arguments and colorblindness suggests that you could indeed be utterly clueless, mindlessly supporting scientific racism through sheer ignorance.

But then you also suggest that race "isn't why people are poor or rich" right in the face of a history of slavery and systematic oppression of black people primarily for the benefit of white people. It's hard to be that wrong by accident, suggesting darker intent.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

You're really bad at this...

you mean "this" Propublica article:
https://assets.documentcloud.o...

""
Chapter 4
Conclusion ...

1. PP Conclusion: âoe

Black defendants who were predicted to recidivate (i.e., given a âoeNot
Lowâ score) actually did recidivate at a higher rate (63%) than the white
defendants (59%). This finding provides evidence of predictive parity for
the GRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

2. PP Conclusion: âoe

White defendants who were predicted not to recidivate (i.e., given a
âoeLowâ score) actually did not recidivate at a higher rate (71%) than the

We use the Positive and Negative Predictive Values for stating the conclusions instead
of their complements to follow standard practice in the field.
black defendants (65%). This finding provides evidence of predictive
parity for the GRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

3. PP Conclusion: âoe

The black defendants were not assigned inappropriately high risk scores.
PPâ(TM)s conclusion is based on their results from their misspecified reverse
logistic regression model, which is contradicted by their results from
their correctly specified Cox survival model. PPâ(TM)s own Cox survival
analysis showed that a variable coding White (0) versus Black (1) had a
positive effect for predicting recidivism over and beyond the COMPAS
Low, Medium, and High levels. There was an interaction showing that
this effect was smaller for the Medium and High levels, but for all three
levels, the predictions from the model were higher for black defendants.
The PP authors are essentially arguing that the COMPAS risk levels
overpredict for blacks. If that were the case, then the predictions from a
regression model that included the risk levels and race (black vs. white)
designed to predict recidivism would need to be adjusted down for blacks
vs whites. However, when Black is added to the Cox survival model, the
predictions from the model for all three risk levels are adjusted in the
opposite direction. Thus, the risk levels donâ(TM)t overpredict for blacks. A
more detailed technical discussion is provided in section 3.4.

4. PP Conclusion: âoe

Black defendants who were predicted to recidivate for violent recidivism
(i.e., given a âoeNot Lowâ score) actually did recidivate at a marginally
higher rate (21%) than the white defendants (17%). And white defen-
dants who were predicted not to recidivate (i.e., given a âoeLowâ score)
actually did not recidivate at a marginally higher rate (93%) than the
black defendants (91%). These findings provide evidence of predictive
parity for the VRRS for blacks and whites in the target population.

5. PP Conclusion: âoe

The black defendants were not assigned inappropriately high risk scores
for violent recidivism. In a survival analysis, a variable coding White
(0) versus Black (1) had a positive but non-significant main effect for
predicting recidivism over and beyond the COMPAS Low, Medium, and
High levels. There was no interaction of this variable with levels as
reported by PP. This finding indicates that the COMPAS risk levels
neither underpredict or overpredict for black defendants.
""

To recap from the conclusion:

1. The "group" predicted to commit further crimes did commit further crimes at a higher rate.

2. The "group" predicted to not commit further crimes did commit fewer crimes.

3. The algorithm did not over predict.

4. Largely a repeat of 1 and 2 with an added cavot that it applies to violent crime as well.

5. The models are mathematically sound.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

I'm really bad at this? You linked to a deflection from the author and vendor of the system. Here's why it actually doesn't disprove the problems pointed out in the propublica article, it merely tries to reframe them in a way that looks less damning.

I mean, it should be obvious that something is wrong when the counterpoint basically boils down to "we're discriminating against people in a way that turns out to be statistically correct overall, therefore it's not wrong." So much for treating people like individuals!

How can you even aspire to achieve colorblindness (or as I like to call it, "babby's first attempt at not being a racist asshat through pretending that different ethnicities and cultures with histories aren't a thing") if you're willing to justify discrimination by painting whole ethnic groups with one broad brush? In your previous post you casually brushed away the legacy of centuries of slavery and segregation, can't you see that this thinking is sending you down a bad path?

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

I linked to the actual study itself. The PDF of the study. And it basically completely contradicted your position.

You keep linking to click bait articles.

Link to your study. And I'll then quote the other study that debunked it if that is even required.

You have no case. Arguing with people like you is like arguing with flatearthers. Evidence is irrelevant. You just go to "i'm right dot com" and cite your priest as if that means anything.

I cited the ACTUAL STUDY. I provided a direct link to the PDF. I then quoted its conclusion. It concluded there was no racial bias.

Get rekt.
Try again.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Anonymous Coward]

https://jacobitemag.com/2017/08/29/a-i-bias-doesnt-mean-what-journalists-want-you-to-think-it-means/

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

An excellent article. However I think that we actually should "force algorithms to reflect wishful thinking" as the author puts it, because the alternative is to use algorithms to justify enacting racism for utilitarian ends such as maximizing profitability or safety. For example, if black Americans are statistically more likely to default on a loan, that doesn't mean it's fine to charge someone higher interest rates in the US because they're black, even if a program makes the association only through proxy factors. Everyone should be given a fair chance regardless of their immutable traits even if it isn't the most efficient solution.

We shouldn't let algorithms be conduits and laundries for utilitarian racism. We wouldn't allow such discrimination if done directly by observation, and we shouldn't allow it if done with complex algorithms that greatly obscure the relationship between race and biased outputs but effectively act in the same way.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

You seem to be willing to ignore not only my sources but also my arguments. But I'll try linking more sources anyway.

https://www.propublica.org/art...

https://github.com/propublica/...

Again, the ProPublica analysis and the vendor's study basically agree on the numbers but define "bias" in different ways. The vendor's PDF says there was no racial bias for a statistician's definition of "bias" which in practical terms, is extremely utilitarian. Again, it basically says that it's fine to discriminate against people based on race as long as the discrimination results in outcomes consistent with the overall numbers for that race. It says that if black people are statistically more likely to reoffend, it's fine to apply higher risk numbers to any and all black people in response to this to produce a statistically unbiased outcome. This is unfair to any individual, who will suffer or benefit from the averages for their race. Propublica calls that biased, rather than using the statistician's definition.

I would ask you to read the article linked in this comment and my response to it to improve your understanding on the difference, and why I disagree with using the statistician's definition to argue that racist algorithms are "unbiased" and therefore acceptable:

https://slashdot.org/comments....

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

... you're just not looking at anything are you...

"This example is also important because of its real world consequences. After the article was published, a team of statisticians at Stanford decided to study the cost of fairness. It is possible to take the COMPAS algorithm and manipulate it to be fair. But in the process of doing this, accuracy is reduced. The Stanford team shows that if this were done, the (mostly black) high risk convicts that the manipulated algorithm would release would then commit 9 percent more violent crimes. Furthermore, 17 percent of the people in jail would be (mostly white) individuals at a very low risk of re-offending."

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

I saw that. Did you see this, from my response?

An excellent article. However I think that we actually should "force algorithms to reflect wishful thinking" as the author puts it, because the alternative is to use algorithms to justify enacting racism for utilitarian ends such as maximizing profitability or safety. For example, if black Americans are statistically more likely to default on a loan, that doesn't mean it's fine to charge someone higher interest rates in the US because they're black, even if a program makes the association only through proxy factors. Everyone should be given a fair chance regardless of their immutable traits even if it isn't the most efficient solution.

Yes I think we should sacrifice accuracy for fairness, to avoid using a person's race (or other immutable tratis) as a factor. Would you like to argue against this?

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[Karmashock]

You're defining racism as hiring more of race X than race Y even though such hiring is required if qualified people are required.

You only obtain a racial discrepancy by ignoring ability.

You get this number by taking the total population of race X and race Y and then looking at the hiring distribution at the company.

That is how you get your base line.

The counter position is that if you exclude everyone in the population that doesn't have the skills... such as a medical degree to become a doctor... then the comparison between the remaining population of X and Y and the hiring pattern of the company makes perfect sense.

For the hiring pattern to be racist, the hiring requirements would have to be racist.

Given that the hiring requirements are work experience and education, that is not a credible argument on your part.

And if you continue to question the point, I'll point out that there are a lot of people of any race that don't have medical degrees. Do you want just such a person to be your doctor?

Say education and job experience is racist again, and you deserve to have a person picked at random and appointed to be your doctor... especially when you're very sick. Possibly when you need surgery.

Your entire position would be laughable if there weren't enough fools in society that would attempt to virtue signal the society into destruction.

Re:Merit based employment is not racism

[GameboyRMH]

You're defining racism as hiring more of race X than race Y even though such hiring is required if qualified people are required.

You've already gone wrong. I'm defining it as using race (or proxy factors for race in a way that has an effect similar to using race) as a factor in the hiring process.

For the hiring pattern to be racist, the hiring requirements would have to be racist.

Given that the hiring requirements are work experience and education, that is not a credible argument on your part.

And if you continue to question the point, I'll point out that there are a lot of people of any race that don't have medical degrees. Do you want just such a person to be your doctor?

Say education and job experience is racist again, and you deserve to have a person picked at random and appointed to be your doctor... especially when you're very sick. Possibly when you need surgery.

You seem to be denying the use of those proxy factors, or again arguing that the use of proxy factors cannot amount to racism. Are you?

Botscan ignore mannerisms

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hard for most humans to ignore "not like me" mannerisms that lead to unintentional race/ethnicity, gender, age, or class bias. For many, it's also hard to ignore when a person's behavior is "wildly non-conforming" to subconscious expectations of behavior that are based on perceived race/ethnicity, gender, age, or class.

A computer can be programmed to ignore things like accents, dialects, slow or fast speech, choice of dress, or behavior that doesn't conform to most people's expectations based on gender, etc. beyond a broad "crearly acted unprofessionally" yes/no mark. If you cuss in the interview without a good reason, that's probably a "no."

Re: Botscan ignore mannerisms

[c6gunner]

If you cuss in the interview without a good reason, that's probably a "no."

My ghetto cultural background includes constant cussing, you bigoted clod!

Re: Botscan ignore mannerisms

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: "My ghetto cultural background includes constant cussing, you bigoted clod!"

If "ghetto" is professional for the job you are applying for, congratulations, you won't even have to fake it.

Examples would be some jobs in the entertainment industry particularly hip-hop, some jobs where you are dealing with people who are from the ghetto particularly customer-facing positions that are actually in the ghetto, and a few others.

For your fellow-job-seekers who weren't raised ghetto or who don't live there now, they better do their homework and be able to speak "ghetto" good enough to pass the "acts professionally" test in the bot pre-screen interview. More importantly, they better be able to "talk the talk and walk the walk" once they get hired.

Pro-tip: If you want to move up in the company once you do get hired, be ready to prove you are "bilingual" and can speak "business English" - the kind of English that bankers and professionals outside the ghetto and "getto-friendly" industries speak.

proxies

[ooloorie]

Companies are also having people do their first interview with an AI chatbot. "One popular AI that does this is called Mya, which promises a 70 percent decrease in hiring time," reports The Daily Beast. "Any number of questions these chatbots could ask could be proxies for race, gender or other factors."

A computer science Ph.D. is a "proxy for race, gender and other factors". Exceptionally test scores are a "proxy for race, gender, and other factors". Are you going to eliminate all objective measures of performance because it correlates with "race, gender, and other factors" in ways that you disapprove?

Re:proxies

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who's using "has a PhD" as a hiring criterion is guilty of horrendous bias in their qualifications design.

Seriously, what does that qualify you for? The ability to focus monomaniacally on a single subject for years on end? To write a book? To give an oral presentation? Apart from the first of these (which is not a much sought after skill, if only because nobody really wants an employee who will take five years to be productive), there are far easier ways to get this sort of experience.

And so "PhD" really can only be a proxy qualification - for "intellectual, middle-class, not too rich or too poor or ambitious...".

Re:proxies

[thesupraman]

Yes, that is pretty much their hope/dream.

Mostly because the tards writing this drivel spent most of their time hanging out with their justice warrior friends in trendy oh so ethnic/organic cafes, attending demonstrations against 'the man' while they took 7 years to complete a 3 year degree in political 'science', while other people were working hard to get degrees in engineering, science, business, and technology.

Now it is so VERY unfair that those other damn people are getting the good jobs, they any attempt to hire based on actual demonstrated ability MUST be banned.

Clickbait

[liefer]

Stop posting these Reddit-level stories that are designed to get people riled up

Re:Clickbait

[sinij]

Stop posting these Reddit-level stories that are designed to get people riled up

Unfortunately, engagement optimization algorithms figured out that trolling people with clickbait is the optimal strategy for increasing engagement as measured by participation.

Algorithmically, showing you this mindless drivel intentionally designed to upset you, would show the most ads. So this will continue happening until we improve algorithms.

Re:Clickbait

[yuriklastalov]

Or make AI illegal and execute anyone who works with it. I'd support a tyrannical world government that promised that. AI is going to be hands down the worst thing to ever happen to humanity. BUT MUH SELF DRIVING CAAAAARS!!!

Re:Clickbait

[sinij]

Or make AI illegal and execute anyone who works with it. I'd support a tyrannical world government that promised that.

Look what happened to natives that stagnated at some sustainable level of technology. Nations that mastered next level showed up, killed a whole bunch, and took their land. AI is just like that.

Re:Clickbait

[yuriklastalov]

Great, so in your analogy here Humans themselves are the natives, right? Charming argument, that.

95% Certain

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading your post, I am 95% certain that you are a 20 something to early 30 something white male that came from an upper middle class (parents were white collar professionals) family, went to a good sub-urban school, and a decent four year university.

You worked very hard in picking your parents - kudos to you! Too many folks make the mistake of being born into poor families, many times minorities. And you made sure you were born the natural abilities to allow the ability to do well enough in subjects to make a great living.
I've know folks who worked themselves to the bone and couldn't pass calculus 1 and got thrown on of the program. Idiots! They should have been born with the abilities to do well in lucrative subjects!

And if you make more than $50,000 years, you are doing wonderful compared to many many people who just as, if not harder than you do.

So, there's quite a bit of luck involved with success in this country: being born to the right family puts you ahead of many people.

But you don't get that.

And then there's the human nature of preferring people that are like you: white middle class etc .... It's just human nature.

Then there's age preferences. Employers will always go for the younger man assuming everything else similar.

Most of Google's workforce are young white men. Why? Is it that only young white men can do the work?
Hardly.

I'm not interested in forcing companies to hire folks just because of style. I'm interested in why in our society birth counts for so much.

We are definitely NOT the meritocracy that people like to believe.

Re:95% Certain

[Karmashock]

You missed the point.

Having problems at point of employment isn't a reason to hire you anyway.

Do you want a doctor that didn't get decent grades in medical school? Most people never go to medical school at all.. would you like a doctor that spent ZERO time studying medicine?

If you would prefer competent doctors then you desire merit based employment.

I'm not saying anywhere that I think we shouldn't try to help communities with problems. However, I think it is also racist to look at these communities racially. Rather you should focus on other more important factors.

Did they come from a single parent house hold? Did they come from a troubled neighborhood? Was there drug abuse in the house hold? Was there positive reinforcement of good study habits etc in the child's household.

These things ultimately determine if there will be problems. Not the race of the individual. To suggest otherwise is to presume that given races are inferior.

I made the point above that your position is actually inherently racist. You wish to classify people on the basis of race.

Are there f'ups from every race? Yep. Are there high achievers from every race? Yep.

Focus on what separates the one from the other and you might actually help people.

Focusing on race will help no one. You will doom those you presume to help to continuing poverty by not addressing the underlying problems in given communities that lead to failure. What is more, your entire concept requires that we hire empirically incompetent people to do jobs. Which you will hypocritically assign to other people or other jobs you don't care about whilst betraying your supposed values by requiring merit based employment when it might actually affect you.

I like that you tried to start your argument with an ad hominem.

Let me try one on you which would be only fair.

I think you're also white, spoiled, feel inferior to your peers, and are attempting to play these pathetically constructed moralistic games as some sort of ploy to claw your way up a social hierarchy.

People like you hurt the people you presume to defend. You're a parasite. You feed upon the suffering of others and use it to humble your opposition and aggrandize yourself. You have nothing positive to offer this situation. And your insecurity is likely very well deserved.

I want everyone to succeed and for society to work. You didn't even read my argument before you dogmatically responded to it. You are no better than the foaming fundamentalists of bygone times that would thump the cover of a book they couldn't even read.

See? I can play this game too... and I'm better at it.

Re: 95% Certain

[Anonymous Coward]

Unlike the previous AC I did read your post. However, I disagree. AI can be racist, but it is an easy thing to avoid. AI is based off the human brain, and guess what it can be trained the same way. However, this is not its downfall it is its strength. If your company uses an AI to find qualified applicants and your hiring and promotion practices are racist, well guess what the training set will be as well. Don't forget you will be getting pretty much a carbon copy set of what you already have. If you want inovation you have to take risks, and guess what AI can't be trained that way. At least not yet, as far as I know we have not yet found a way to train AI to recognize something we have not seen before.

So you get out what you put in. But if your company is racist or sexist, caugh, (google) caugh. Then you can't expect any improvement from an AI. No matter how much of the human element you remove.

Re:95% Certain

[Anonymous Coward]

After reading your post (a couple times to try to detect hidden sarcasm) I have to say that I am 95% sure it is the most racist/sexist/stupid thing I have read today, although the day is young. I always love posts that start with the whole, your life experience is worthless because it doesn't conform to my perceived victimhood bit. Thank you for keeping my non-faith in humanity alive and well.

Your 'pick your parents' bit is the same sudo-religious clap trap I have come to expect from the poorly educated/highly indoctrinated.

Your 'born with the abilities' bit is extremely humorous when you use it in your screed against the US having a Meritocracy. You might want to look up what that word means. Here is a hint, if you don't have abilities you shouldn't make it far in a Meritocracy by definition.

I disagree with your 'just lucky' bit but as it has no real definitions its hard to argue. In my experience consistent hard work over a more than 5 years has always had a good payoff. On the other hand slacking and playing the blame game seems to result in a high rate of failure. Compounded over a lifetime lots of good choices seem to become significant while lots of bad choices seem to just reset you to a default poor state.

Your employment bit seems to be complete bull. Google specifically has a higher percentage of women devs than are available in the general workforce. This implies, but doesn't prove, that all things being equal they go with women. As of their last report, I can find, they are well under half white males. In fact the most obvious racial disparity is that they have over 3x the number of Asians as in the general population.

Further, in all employment situations that I have been involved with in the last 20 years there isn't some implicit bias towards sameness. Instead there is an explicit bias towards whatever is the pity group of the moment. I have seen the obviously worse candidate chosen time and time again, this is real racism.

Finally, all put together I think your post proves the reality of the grandparents post as a best case situation. At best your concept of a Meritocracy seems to be that everyone is dumbed down to the same level (remove the luck of birth) so there is some form of 'fair' results (not fair competition).

Posting annon to protect my family in the age of #metoo.

Re:95% Certain

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who are making the argument don't want society to work. They want it to fail. Facts and out-arguing will just get you shouted down.

Re:95% Certain

[Karmashock]

I can throw rhetorical rotten fruit at mental cripples if I want. Its a free country.

Re: 95% Certain

[Karmashock]

First, I don't argue that AI "cannot" be programmed to have a racial bias. My argument rather is that there is no evidence that anyone has actually implemented such a hiring system anywhere... certainly not amoungst the major multi national corporations. And those are generally the targets for legal and political agitation probably because slimy people think they can get a fat settlement simply by being annoying.

Second, racial diversity is not actually hugely helpful for innovation. This is one of the odd logical contradictions you get from PC politics. This notion that "we're all human" but "if you have different pigment then you have different ideas"... its nonsense. You can have a more monolithic set of ideas with a very racially diverse group or a very diverse set of ideas with a single race or even a single race and gender. To say otherwise is to suggest that races have different mental processes biologically which if you don't contradict the position opens the door for saying given races will be better or worse at given tasks. Since we all agree that all races are generally equally able to do the same things at the same level... you can't contradict that position and then say that mixing the races offers some kind of intellectual advantage. This is a "x=2, x=3" argument. X cannot equal 2 and 3 at the same time. How this sort of patently absurd logic gets through our cultural filters is pretty terrifying really.

Third, your point about Google is well taken and reveals the double standards that are at play here. Google is naturally openly discouraging certain races from applying to jobs whilst these people here seem convinced that phantom discrimination exists despite their inability to actually present any evidence.

Re: 95% Certain

[Anonymous Coward]

Having spent decades looking at tools that allegedly do not utilise race, gender, ethnicity, etc to determine the best candidate, it increasingly looks like claims of protected-class-bias-free tools are a pipe-dream.

Fuck Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

It has become a worthless troll site for SJWs to push their grievances.

There's plenty of interesting science and technology news, but Slasdhot posts endless streams of shit.

Re:Fuck Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Fixed that for you:
"It has become a worthless troll site for alt-right white-supremacists to push their grievances."

I mean, for fucks sake, just look at some of the comments on this thread. Summary: "how dare the non-white non-males complain that the 'interview bot' which will decide their future has been trained nearly exclusively on white males? How very dare they!"

Re:Fuck Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no reason to believe that those complaining about who is training it are in favor of complete equality of opportunity either.

All of us have good reason to be very very afraid.

Re:Fuck Slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Remember that Arabs purchased Slashdot to push their agendas and that the fake editors are Bay area zombies.

generalized racism

[Anonymous Coward]

It is unfair to everyone, rotten to some, and you never even know why. Just like human resources wanted.

Speculation, that's all

[Anonymous Coward]

Not likely. I really wish tech reporting would get away from the 'coulds' and 'mights'. It's not just bad journalism, it's bad science. Until something is proven 100%, and found to be accurate 100% of the time, it's just a hypothesis. There are a great many reasons this will never become common place. I suppose it might be difficult to see if one's own brain works algorithmically. Fun fact: most human brains do not function strictly, or even mostly, algorithmically.

Re: Speculation, that's all

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing is 100%. You can argue whether p-values of 0.05 are the right level for statistical significance or whatever, but obviously there's a wide range between "speculation", likelihood, and things that only exist in pure math because our measurement capabilities are only so good.

Biggest racist hypocrites of all time?

[Anonymous Coward]

Khazar Talmudic Jews believe this of all they call goyim/gentiles (non-jews): Jews = biggest racists of all for which they "jew guilt" you for no less & you can't be racist vs. a religious cult like them (though they accuse YOU of it)! They're hypocrites known as thieves all thru history or were these nations banishing them a lie? Argentines in 1940 under Peron, France (1306), Egypt (despoiled/robbed by jews), Arabs (pre & post 1948), England (1330 Edward longshanks), Romans under titus, Russia pogroms, Spanish inquistion & Spain 1492 and Germany who got rid of them from their nations nazi german's too? No. Driven into DESERTS ages ago! Don't wonder why after all those exilings above. Should anyone doubt any of this see Jacob Javits' crony Rosenthal spill the beans on it (which JEWgle's JEWTube has blocked, there are links below though that are not blocked proving it is truth) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4zMVZ8HnFI/ where he called all Christianity fools for helping Israel and the biggest scam of all time per their beliefs below from their Talmud. This is the province of the synagogue of Satan (Pharisees whom Jesus Christ himself kicked to the curb out of the temple & they killed him for it. Jeremiah did the same to them also + the Essenes could not stand them either breaking away from the pharisee corruption):

Mark Zuckerberg who STOLE facebook's code from the Winklevoss twins (who dusted him in court on it) calling his users "DUMB FUCKS" & spied on his collegiate classmates via 'fakebook', home of bots and spying/tracking you, now in court FRYING (rightfully so). He also PAID OFF the courts (by political contributions like Jew AIPAC does) on the MAJORITY of the council judges there. He STILL had to apologize!

Maria Abramovic satanist spirit cooker pal of Hillary Clinton the Voodoo queen is a jew https://www.google.com/search?...

Like Hillary Clinton's mentor Saul Alinsky author of rules for radicals book dedicated to Lucifer

John Podesta Hillary's pal again, is another JUDE with a pedophile brother (both = satanists too imo).

"Most Jews do not like to admit it, but our god is Lucifer so I wasnâ(TM)t lying â" and we are his chosen people. Lucifer is very much aliveâ Harold Rosenthal http://www.thetruthseeker.co.u...

Jewish rabbi openly admits to satan worship use white children's blood they kill for passover bread (which THIS video covers in detail https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eU8Y1743QoY/ & how they ran the black slave trade + how they say a prayer to KILL US ALL (goyim) during passover), infiltrating and subverting the catholic church, creating the Jesuit order https://www.youtube.com/watch?... and https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
or https://www.youtube.com/watch?... too!

Barbara Spectre, a jew, tells everyone it's jews orchestrating the muslim migrant problem in Europe https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MFE0qAiofMQ/ (now blocked by JEWgle JEWTube, but this one is not https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85BKDj_1vVU/ ). No migrant raping of women in Poland. Tons in Sweden. Do the math. Use common-sense. This is to get muslims and other goyim/gentiles to wipe one another out as incompatible cultures that will clash and always have.

Rabbi A. Finkelstein ADMITS their greatest enemies are ARABS and WHITES (blacks too) whom they wish to kill on

Re:Biggest racist hypocrites of all time?

[Anonymous Coward]

I wonder what your thoughts on Timecube theory is.

What is "Racist?"

[Anonymous Coward]

If an AI learns through experience that green people tend to lie more, and purple people tend to be more honest, then the AI will come to its own conclusion that it will be less likely to trust or work with green people.

I imagine the AI's creator (aka SJWs) will get all butt-hurt and override what the AI learned, and instruct it to ignore the facts that are non-PC.

Certainty?

[kenh]

As Recode pointed out, because most programmers are white men, these AI are actually often trained using white male faces and male voices. That can lead to misperceptions of black faces or female voices, which can lead to the AI making negative judgments about those people. The results could trend sexist or racist, but the employer who is using this AI would be able to shift the blame to a supposedly neutral technology. Companies are also having people do their first interview with an AI chatbot. "One popular AI that does this is called Mya, which promises a 70 percent decrease in hiring time," reports The Daily Beast. "Any number of questions these chatbots could~/b> ask could be proxies for race, gender or other factors."

What an elaborate argument for a possibly Racist interview. I'm curious, what is the alternative - rely on 'gut feelings' from experienced managers who've only previously worked with programmers of their own ethnicity?

As I see it, the AI software likely looks for 'tells' or other indicators an interviewee is lying/being evasive (eye movement, shifting in seat, nervous behavior, etc), and NOT making blanket decisions based on, say, surname, gender, or skin color.

Might there be a bias? Sure, but it will likely be much less than a human confronted with a mountain of resumes, trying to whittle it down to a manageable pile.

We'd like to think that a manager of a programming Dept staffed nearly completely with white, Indian, or some other ethnicity would be open to considering an applicant of a different ethnicity, she may fear a culture clash and focus on candidates that might fit better with her current team... is it wrong, sure. But it's understandable, to a certain extent.

Petition of the Candlemakers

[Anonymous Coward]

In 1845, Frederic Bastiat penned the satirical Petition of the Candlemakers:

http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html

He presents a scenario where the professional candlemakers try to have regulations placed on the sun so that more people will buy their candles for light. Obviously this is ridiculous, but it is THE SAME THING that happens when people call for protectionism, either of industries or types of job.

Retail work is dying. That means the supply of jobs in that field is contracting, leaving more people to compete for the same jobs. Rather than complain about it, your friend should invest time in learning new skills, differentiating, and adapting to the changing market.

Unless you want to buy some candles.

Re:Petition of the Candlemakers

[Pseudonym]

It's ridiculous because the guilds of old have no power any more. Today, it would be the Legislation Written by the Candle Industry Lobbyist.

Lizard people...

[VeryFluffyBunny]

What we really need is an AI that can identify the lizard people living among us. They're the ones responsible for everything that's going wrong these days and they're the ones blaming the world's problems on women, muslims, jews, immigrants, liberals, conservatives, etc.. Let's stop giving the lizard people our jobs!

Re:Lizard people...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have to disagree. The reason lizard people get jobs at all is for access to humans, to be able to pre-sort them for more efficient disposition when the interstellar cattle cars arrive. In order to maintain this access, lizard people always perform the requirements of their job in a competent manner. All my best employees have been lizard people!

Re:Racist? Don't know the meaning of the word.

[Anonymous Coward]

Take for example, this test I had in public school on diversity:
Question: You are a hiring manager and you have two candidates for a job. One black, one white. Whom do you hire?
My answer: Interview both candidates and choose the candidate most qualified for the job.
My answer was marked incorrect. The correct answer is: "You hire the black man"

Cool story, bro.

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Because racism, ageism, and sexism save money

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sad to say that diversity, and encouraging diversity, can cost a great deal of money. Older employees need more health care, and refuse to do hours that younger, more eager starting employees accept as part of the work environment. Racism helps keep the work environment consistent in social needs, such as weekly work schedules and vacation time. And sexism helps prevent one of the greatest burdens of a modern workplace: transgender transformations, whether surgery is involved or not. The workplace cost of an employee changing gender far exceeds that of a pregnancy. Been there, done that, and the costs are *outrageous*, especially if work medical insurance needs to pick up the costs of surgery. And, *my god*, the costs of dealing with the mood swings far exceeds those of pregnancy, menopause, or midlife crises. I've had to sign the checks for all of those, and know which I can possibly afford to fund.

My last job application was in 1994.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever since then I've been receiving unsolicited offers from companies ranging from game devs to private equity.

Anyone sweating robo-interviews should seriously question if they're producing any real value.

Once you can produce value, you will have more offers than time.

Everything else is excuses.

Soo.. Chinese?

[Anonymous Coward]

What youre saying is the Chinks are taking over? Quell suprise.

"because most programmers are white men"

[ClaraSexton]

This may be true in Western countries, however I doubt most of the programmers in China or India are white.

Re: "because most programmers are white men"

[Anonymous Coward]

South Africa under apartheid had racial classifications for every known ethnic group.

Indians were honoury whites for some purposes, and their own racial group for other purposes.
Chinese from PRC were always "Indian".
Chinese from Taiwan, Macau, and Hong Kong were always "honoury white".
Japanese were always white - technically, "honoury white".

If you really want to deal with the artificiality of race and ethnicity, delve into South African statute law, case law, and adminitrative rulings during the apartheid eta.

Re: "because most programmers are white men"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah and today it is all the other way around in South Africa.
The new black government is using the same apartheid racial classifications and dogmas.
But now it is whites who are killed by hundreds and their farming lands taken away whithout any compensation.
Now it is south african black president and south african black defence minister who are talking about the need to get all the whites out of south africa ... hello Zimbabwe vol 2.

and the college graduate may more likey tostealing

[Joe_Dragon]

and the college graduate may more likely to stealing cash to cover there big loans as min wage part time at mc does not pay them off.

Not the point

[Anonymous Coward]

The companies using these kinds of systems should worry more about the impact on the organization, their measurements of the best employees and their competitive position in the future as the ideas for new, unexpected products will pass them by. This is anti-diversification technology on the deeper level where it actually matters, not on the superficial levels of racial or gender bias.

Lets wait before jumping to conclusions

[Anonymous Coward]

With AI, we can examine the source code to see if it really is discrimimating against people.

Most likely, blacks are not going to has the same representation per capita as whites because less of them learn software development.

This isn't because of racist hiring, tech is the least racist sector I know. Go find some rural farmers if you're looking for racists.

Many in tech however, oppose affirmative action because they believe in equal opportunity and not equal outcome. I suspect these tech employers will not hire blacks in significant numbers since affirmative action employers will get all the half-decent ones.

We can't have a discussion about ending racism until the left acknowledges that affirmative action is racism. I'd be all for ending racism, but the left only wants to stop racism against minorities. In thier view, racism against white's is okay.

I've made it a personal point to oppose and avoid supporting any "diversity" or "anti-racist" platforms for this reason. The reality is that they too are racists. And if everyone is going to be racist against me (a white) I might as well be racist against non-whites in retaliation.

Retaliatory racism is the reason minorities would be better off without affirmative action.

diversity as a strength

[Anonymous Coward]

More evidence that diversity CAUSES problems. It's not a strength.

F***k /. stop the SJW bullshit

[bongey]

Tired of the constant clickbait stories and titles, /. is no longer going to be a tech site eventually.

Racist?

[Murdoch5]

Most programmers are Caucasian because in general, caucasian programmers just happen to be the most qualified. This also tends to mean those programmers test what they build on themselves, which isn't a racial issue, it's a practical issue. As a "white" developer, it would be very hard to test my AI programs on a "black" face, as I'm so white marshmallows make gangster jokes.

Colleges are going bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

That's NOT what companies want. Have you ever been a hiring manager? The vast majority of people coming out of colleges these days are totally useless in the work force; that's why so many of them (even with PhDs) are unemployed.

I have a B.A. and M.A., both in liberal arts. Both degrees are completely useless on the job market. As a hiring manager, I couldn't care less what degrees someone has. A person trained by the academic guild (and often very poorly, with little critical thinking) doesn't help me sell product, cut costs, or innovate against the competition.

College is a waste for 95% of people, and it has been propped up by student loans. The student loan debt bubble in the U.S. exceeds consumer credit card debt. It's going to implode spectacularly.

The people who are actually intelligent know enough to build skills rather than relying on college to get them a job or make a living.

Re:Colleges are going bankrupt

[burtosis]

Liberal arts degrees are a waste of money, like psychology or music degrees. Get them only if you want to lower the barrier of entry to low paying jobs you might find attractive I've personally. A 4 year liberal arts degree will get you that 11 dollar an hour office job before a high school diploma, that is what hiring managers look for in young people. Try getting the office job earlier and you will find upward mobility restricted with your lack of skilled labor due to lack of education as the reason. I got an engineering degree and founded a successful robotics company, something that wouldn't have been possible outside a graduate engineering college setting. I now make nearly 10x the minimum wage worker and have no problem getting jobs despite being in my 40s. Incidentally, most of my undergrad and all of my graduate school was free because I was employed by the university and have no debt. I'm rich, I want others to have the same opportunity.

Re:Colleges are going bankrupt

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference between a CEO and his vice-presidents? Glad you asked. The CEO has an art collection.
If you're really successful, we'll be impressed by your humanity.

Re:Colleges are going bankrupt

[mjwx]

Liberal arts degrees are a waste of money, like psychology or music degrees.

Psychology degrees open doors into teaching and therapy jobs to name just two.
Music degrees open doors into all manner of production jobs like audio editing, sound recordist, post production, score writing, so on and so forth and this is beyond actually playing for a living (think less American Idle and more a paying gig in a philharmonic orchestra).

But I bet you're one of those knuckle dragging, mouth breathing, Fox News/Daily Mail subscribers that think these people just fall out of trees. I've worked for universities that provide both of these courses. A huge amount of usable research came out of psychology such as treatments for mental disorders, teaching methods for autistic people not to mention the less ethical routes of marketing, journalism and politics (a lot of those massaging the data from the likes of Cambridge Analytica will have physiology degrees). Music degrees, students were taught how to produce music from writing to mastering and release, so they were taught all manner of skills that can land a decent job.

Liberal arts... maybe, I've never researched one of those (and neither have you) but comparing them to degrees that produce actual jobs, you've got no clue.

Re:Colleges are going bankrupt

[DaveV1.0]

Psychology degrees open doors into teaching and therapy jobs to name just two. Music degrees open doors into all manner of production jobs like audio editing, sound recordist, post production, score writing, so on and so forth

Please state what the job market is like for teachers, sound recordists, post-production workers, score writers, etc. I believe you will find, assuming you do the research, that job growth is stagnant, pay is low, and employment opportunities are few. A primary indicator if the value of a degree is whether one can get a job in that industry. Someone who has a degree in psychology who becomes a teacher is considered underemployed.

But I bet you're one of those knuckle dragging, mouth breathing, Fox News/Daily Mail subscribers that think these people just fall out of trees.

Ah, there it is, the ad hominem so common in the leftist SJW community. It is rather ironic considering your sig:

Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.

Could does not mean does. Debiasing is a thing

[Anonymous Coward]

The would "could" is used a lot in that post. It doesn't mean the they "have" use biased training sets. Debiasing is a thing and it's not that hard. "If" they did not used debiased encoding vectors then, yes, they should be ashamed of themselves.

Interviewed by a bot devoid of our misperceptions

[Humbubba]

Interviewer: "Are you ruled by expedience? Maybe there's a reason to kill all humans. They're just ugly sacks of mostly water, monsters actually, and one of them looked at you funny."

Interviewee: "Whaaa..."

Interviewer: "Who's next?"

times up

[Anonymous Coward]

we need to eliminate the concept of the corporation, and strip all business entities of all rights, period. you should be persoally liable for any business decision you make. if we need a large project, we the people can fund it through taxes. no corporate personhood, no AI personhood, no allowing AI to make human decisions. we need to think seriously about what frank herbert wrote about, limiting computing power. we dont NEED it controlling anything that humans can do intellectually. all we need robots for is rote labor. we are gonna regret giving corporations all this power. it wont be worth it.

I am not following

[superwiz]

Even if majority of the programmers are white men, why would they use themselves as the training data for the bots? Wouldn't they use a demographic that is more likely to be interviewed for the jobs for which the interviewing bots are designated?

Re:I am not following

[yuriklastalov]

Reality has a racist bias.

Why just the negative?

[GuB-42]

AI trained on white men will be more accurate with white men, but it doesn't mean that they will favor white men. In fact, if the black women it was trained with were particularly suitable, it will be more likely to be biased towards them.

not for me

[AndyKron]

There won't be a next job interview for me. If I get laid off then I'm done. Fuck looking for another job.

Re:not for me

[Anonymous Coward]

And who is supposed to support you then? Me?

AI or human

[cascadingstylesheet]

AI or human, if a company actually hired by racism, they'd be handing their competitors a huge competitive advantage.

After all, they'd be using a meaningless criterion, while their competitors would be focusing of course on skills and experience alone. Right?

(You'd think an AI might catch this after awhile, but whatever. if it didn't, the market would.)

Tay is doing interviews?

[ayesnymous]

Tay is doing interviews?

MS technology

[stooo]

Hey, That's a new way big companies can throw money at MS: Use Tay for their job interviews.
What. could. possibly. go. wrong?
Tay is cool

White men stick together.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're a straight white male then it's time you realized this meritocracy stuff we believe in? We're the only ones who actually believe it, everyone else uses it against us. Every group we've extended freedom to historically is at the present time using that freedom in direct opposition to our interests, the interests of the founders of our nations and the men who came before us. I don't know why shit like this winds up on /.

I refuse talking to webcams

[fmoliveira]

There was a company around here that asked people to send a video to even be considered to a job. I hate speaking to a computer, so I just ignored them. I won't do anything like that as long as there are any alternatives. I more people refused bullshit like this it wouldn't spread.

Blackbot

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as it's not a black robot. Red or Green is fine, but I don't like black robots.

Truth

[Anonymous Coward]

If the majority of white male applicants are good, then why not skew that way? This machine learning will put racial realities that people would rather dismiss to the forefront.

This can be overridden of course by humans. The AI could have scored the black applicant at a 60%, but then thereâ(TM)s a racial override rule to satisfy diversity quotas. This would be exactly how modern hiring works at the big companies.

Lots of bs

[Anonymous Coward]

I work on the algos that are used to screen and interview employees, and know hirevue well. The algos do not take race into account and the relatively basic âmoodâ(TM)/âexpressionâ(TM) logic that video interviewing tools provide is not useful - or used - its more of a marketing gimmick.

State of the art at the moment is to be able to find holes in resumes and ask relevant questions before passing the candidate to a human interviewer.

Btw, most companies doing development in this space are so concerned about racial bias as some of the conspiracy theorists here believe. To the point of intentionally crippling the efficiency of the said algos so that racial bias does not show up in aggregate statistics. Nothing to see here, I think.

Racist Bots!

[Anonymous Coward]

Fart fart poopy doop pee pee poo poo farty poop

so mad at those racist starbucks coffee bots

Re:and the college graduate may more likey tosteal

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, work on your grammar before you ever post again. "May more likely to stealing"? "there big loans" "does not pay them off"? You barely have a point and you have no idea how to express it.

Barely-related fact - SLSO

[eric_harris_76]

The St. Louis Symphony was one of the pioneers of auditions where the performers being considered for a position played behind a barrier where they could not be seen and with their identities unknown to those making the hiring decision.

I don't know if the results of this process resulted in statistics that made some people get irrationally upset. But it wouldn't surprise me.