Disability Bias in HireVue’s Algorithms
In today’s world, we live where algorithms and its collected data determine a vast range of areas in our lives, ranging from personalized social media newsfeed to managing public safety and welfare. By automating complex processes, such as hiring qualified candidates for a job, numerous companies, such as Facebook and Google, could save time from scheduling interviews with candidates in person. Though algorithmic systems attempt to remove bias from the hiring process, these machine learning algorithms “make mistakes and operate with biases” (Diakopoulus, 2015). Algorithmic bias occurs when algorithms generate results that are built on systematic discrimination due to numerous factors. Examples include the biases of the researchers developing the algorithm and the design process of the algorithm. In November 2019, Drew Harwell, a technology reporter at the Washington Report, heavily scrutinized HireVue, an online video-interviewing platform, for creating algorithms that perpetuate bias against disabled people. Questions that I wish to explore are as follows. How does HireVue’s algorithms discriminate against disabled job applicants? What are possible methods to mitigate disability bias in AI-driven hiring systems, if at all?
HireVue, an algorithmic hiring system, has become one of the most prominent gatekeepers for America’s most prestigious companies, changing how prospective…
