The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now

Schellmann, a journalism professor at New York University, debuts with a disquieting survey of the failures of artificial intelligence used in corporate personnel decisions. Pushing back against claims that AI reduces bias in hiring, she notes that AI software’s “one-size-fits-all” approach often marginalizes people with disabilities. For instance, an AI game claimed to test job candidates’ “processing speed” and creativity by measuring how quickly applicants could hit the space bar, putting people with motor disabilities at a disadvantage. AI, Schellmann explains, frequently proposes ludicrous correlations because, in analyzing the résumés of current employees, they often pick up on statistically significant but arbitrary commonalities, as when one hiring tool “predicted success for candidates named Thomas or Elsie.” Stories of people negatively affected by AI exasperate, such as the case of a recent college graduate who worked as a contract delivery driver for Amazon during the pandemic until a technical glitch triggered the automated management system to fire her. Elsewhere, Schellmann’s reports on testing various AI programs provide amusing anecdotes about the technology’s considerable shortcomings (an automated interview program designed to assess English proficiency decided Schellmann’s English was “competent,” despite her answering entirely in German). It’s a striking indictment of AI’s flaws and misuses. Agent: Roger Freet, Folio Literary. (Jan.)