Artificial intelligence technology is making inroads into the workplace in many unexpected ways, including in employment decisions. Advocates say AI can help businesses to make decisions about hiring and other human resources concerns more quickly and efficiently than ever. Some even say that, by removing humans from some of these processes, they can remove biases and make the process more fair to employees and job candidates.
That last point is disputed by many critics. Some say AI technology can be biased as well, and this can lead to illegal employment discrimination.
A new Colorado lawsuit helps illustrate some of these criticisms.
ACLU lawsuit
According to a recent news report, the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit on behalf of a deaf, Indigenous Colorado worker who says they were denied a promotion due to problems with their employer’s AI-based software.
The ACLU says the employer, Intuit, denied the worker the promotion after the company’s AI-based interviewing software deemed the employee as a poor candidate for promotion. However, the lawsuit claims, the interview software was audio-based and lacked sufficient subtitles. This, of course, presented problems for the employee, who is deaf. What’s more, at the end of the interview, the software gave the employee feedback that encouraged them to improve their “active listening” skills — which was, for this worker, impossible.
The lawsuit also claims that the interviewing software discriminated against the employee because of their race.
Can software be biased?
Critics of AI software in hiring practices acknowledge that an algorithm does not make biased decisions the way a human would. However, AI algorithms make decisions based on the data they have. If there is a problem with their data, the software may make bad decisions.
The ACLU claims its recent complaint, which was filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Colorado Civil Rights Division, is the first of its kind. It will probably not be the last. As AI tools become more powerful and more common in business, there may be many more such legal actions in the near future.