Research conducted by Upstate faculty highlights some of the ways AI can impact the workplace of the future. Justin Travis, assistant professor of psychology, has been examining how AI technologies are being used in the hiring process and the ethical implications of that.
Some companies, for example, have used AI models to assess candidates and predict whether they would be a good fit for the job. In this scenario, applicants record themselves answering interview questions. An AI model uses a randomly selected subset from the applicant pool and a portion of their videos to train itself to look for specific behaviors or data points that the company has indicated it wants to see. From there, the model is applied to the entire candidate pool to identify top applicants.
This raises some obvious concerns, especially because there’s no transparency about what factors a company used to create its model, Travis explains. Bias could potentially be introduced in any number of ways, which is why its important for models to regularly be reviewed and assessed. For example, is the model making predictions that apply to both men and women, and to people of different ages and races?
Travis notes that industrial and organizational psychologists have long used AI to help companies analyze workplace productivity and employee satisfaction. But this more sophisticated application of AI is still relatively new and in limited use. Without any current legislation that specifically addresses how to use AI in personnel decisions, it’s important to develop some guidelines, Travis says.
“People need to be aware that while it might not be against the law right now, it could be, in the blink of an eye,” he says. “And there are ethical and maybe even moral considerations that should be made when you’re using these tools, because it’s a phenomenal amount of power that could be harnessed here.”