Amazon has reportedly scrapped a recruitment tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that showed a clear bias against women.
“Everyone wanted this holy grail”, one of the sources said. The system was designed to sift through 100 job applications and “spit out” the top five results.
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The machine gave each applicant a rating out of five, “much like shoppers rate products on Amazon”, says the news site.
The AI was trained to use a method known as machine learning. This allowed researchers to feed the program old CVs from the past ten years to use as reference material so the AI could accurately grade real-life job applications, the BBC says.
But the data submitted came primarily from former male applicants, meaning the “sexist” AI taught itself that “male candidates were preferable”, the broadcaster reports.
The bias was discovered in 2015 when recruiters found that the AI system wasn’t rating applicants in a gender-neutral way. The program was penalising CVs with the word “women” in them, putting female applicants who had studied at women’s colleges, for example, or written “women’s chess club captain” in their list of achievements at a disadvantage.
Programmers subsequently amended the system to remove the bias but this was not a complete success, according to Fortune. The AI was abandoned last year.
Amazon declined to comment on the technology, but said the tool “was never used by Amazon recruiters to evaluate candidates.”
Has the AI hindered female job applicants?
Amazon insiders insist it hasn’t.
Speaking to The Sun, Amazon sources said the retail giant “never based recruitment decisions on the tool's ratings alone”, but recruiters did examine the AI’s recommendations when sifting through applications.
This isn’t the first time an AI programme has been shown to favour men over women.
Facebook came under fire last month after it emerged that AI systems had been preventing women from seeing certain job advertisements, the newspaper says.
-
Denmark's 'pornographic' mermaid statue is in hot waterUnder the Radar Town will reportedly remove voluptuous Big Mermaid, despite statue being 'arguably a bit less naked' than Copenhagen monument the Little Mermaid
-
August 10 editorial cartoonsCartoons Sunday's political cartoons include a global plastics problem, GOP enthusiasm over tariffs, and more
-
5 thin-skinned cartoons about shooting the messengerCartoons Artists take on unfavorable weather, a look in the mirror, and more
-
The jobs most at risk from AIThe Explainer Sales and customer services are touted as some of the key jobs that will be replaced by AI
-
Why AI means it's more important than ever to check terms and conditionsIn The Spotlight WeTransfer row over training AI models on user data shines spotlight on dangers of blindly clicking 'Accept'
-
Are AI lovers replacing humans?Talking Points A third of Gen Z singles use tech as a 'romantic companion'
-
Palantir: The all-seeing tech giantFeature Palantir's data-mining tools are used by spies and the military. Are they now being turned on Americans?
-
Grok brings to light wider AI antisemitismIn the Spotlight Google and OpenAI are among the other creators who have faced problems
-
Intellectual property: AI gains at creators' expenseFeature Two federal judges ruled that it is fair use for AI firms to use copyrighted media to train bots
-
Is AI killing the internet?Talking Point AI-powered browsers and search engines are threatening the death of the open web
-
Nvidia hits $4 trillion milestoneSpeed Read The success of the chipmaker has been buoyed by demand for artificial intelligence
