A new report from researchers at the University of Cambridge suggests that some uses of AI in recruitment are little better than an “automated pseudoscience” similar to discredited beliefs that personality can be deduced from facial features or skull shape. 

They say it is a dangerous example of “technosolutionism”, which means turning to technology to provide quick fixes for deep-rooted discrimination issues that require investment and changes to company culture, said Dr Eleanor Drage, a co-author of the report from Cambridge’s Centre for Gender Studies.

Those supporting the technology contend AI can cancel out human biases against gender and ethnicity during recruitment, instead using algorithms that read vocabulary, speech patterns and even facial micro-expressions to assess pools of job applicants for the right personality type and ‘culture fit’.

The researchers on the report worked with a team of Cambridge computer science undergraduates to dispute the AI hiring techniques by building an AI tool modelled on the technology. “The ‘Personality Machine’ demonstrates how arbitrary changes in facial expression, clothing, lighting and background can give radically different personality readings – and so could make the difference between rejection and progression for a generation of jobseekers vying for graduate positions,” Drage said.

She went on to say: “Use of AI to narrow candidate pools may ultimately increase uniformity rather than diversity in the workforce, as the technology is calibrated to search for the employer’s fantasy ‘ideal candidate’.

“We are concerned that some vendors are wrapping ‘snake oil’ products in a shiny package and selling them to unsuspecting customers,” Drage said.

Despite some pushback – the EU’s proposed AI Act classifies AI-powered hiring software as “high risk”, for example – researchers say that AI tools are deployed with little regulation. 

A 2020 study of 500 organisations across various industries in five countries found 24% of businesses have implemented AI for recruitment purposes and 56% of hiring managers planned to adopt it in the next year. Another poll in April 2020 of 334 leaders cited by Drage found that 86% of organisations were incorporating new virtual technology into hiring practices.

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