#6: AI to fight hiring bias

AI Asia Pacific Institute Podcast

In the day and age of Netflix, Spotify and Amazon -- platforms that take in information about you and give you personalized recommendations that seem to know you better than you know yourself – where was the equivalent for jobs? Netflix’s movie recommendations are not based on their “back of the movie” blurbs. instead, they analyze movies based on deep analysis of traits and then match you based on the traits you like in movies. So why are we still evaluating people based on their “blurbs,” i.e. their resumes? Why was no one applying this powerful technology to help us make one of our most important decisions – what we do with our careers? — Frida Polli, Pymetrics CEO

We know that algorithms have a tendency to mirror the biases from society. In this episode, we talked with Michelle Hancic, Head of Industrial and Organisational Psychology for APAC at Pymetrics about what the company is doing to bring solutions in this area and what the future holds in respect of AI in HR and other industries.

Pymetrics, a New York start-up, is working to eliminate all the “interview bias” and “educational pedigree bias” inherent in the current recruitment process. It makes software to help companies evaluate job applicants, replacing flawed methods like campus recruiting and résumé screens with a series of neuroscience-based games that are intended to be nondiscriminatory.