Slashdot Summary
IBM laid off “a couple hundred” HR workers and replaced them with AI agents. “It’s becoming a huge thing,” says Mike Peditto, a Chicago-area consultant with 15 years of experience advising companies on hiring practices. He tells Slate “I do think we’re heading to where this will be pretty commonplace.”
Although A.I. job interviews have been happening since at least 2023, the trend has received a surge of attention in recent weeks thanks to several viral TikTok videos in which users share videos of their A.I. bots glitching. Although some of the videos were fakes posted by a creator whose bio warns that his content is “all satire,” some are authentic — like that of Kendiana Colin, a 20-year-old student at Ohio State University who had to interact with an A.I. bot after she applied for a summer job at a stretching studio outside Columbus. In a clip she posted online earlier this month, Colin can be seen conducting a video interview with a smiling white brunette named Alex, who can’t seem to stop saying the phrase “vertical-bar Pilates” in an endless loop…
Representatives at Apriora, the startup company founded in 2023 whose software Colin was forced to engage with, did not respond to a request for comment. But founder Aaron Wang told Forbes last year that the software allowed companies to screen more talent for less money… (Apriora’s website claims that the technology can help companies “hire 87 percent faster” and “interview 93 percent cheaper,” but it’s not clear where those stats come from or what they actually mean.)
Colin (first interviewed by 404 Media) calls the experience dehumanizing — wondering why they were told dress professionally, since “They had me going the extra mile just to talk to a robot.” And after the interview, the robot — and the company — then ghosted them with no future contact. “It was very disrespectful and a waste of time.”
Houston resident Leo Humphries also “donned a suit and tie in anticipation for an interview” in which the virtual recruiter immediately got stuck repeating the same phrase.
Although Humphries tried in vain to alert the bot that it was broken, the interview ended only when the A.I. program thanked him for “answering the questions” and offering “great information” — despite his not being able to provide a single response. In a subsequent video, Humphries said that within an hour he had received an email, addressed to someone else, that thanked him for sharing his “wonderful energy and personality” but let him know that the company would be moving forward with other candidates.
“So I do think there’s value behind the idea of, where a company used to be able to interview 10 people for a job, they can at least screen 1,000 now.”
Completely ignoring how they’re wasting 100x as much interviewee time.
Completely ignoring how they’re wasting 100x as much interviewee time.
That does not cost the company anything so they do not care, all that matters is line go up.
So in the future we won’t just have job-ads for non-existing jobs, it’ll also be possible to have job interviews for non-existing jobs.
considering how much ghost jobs some of these job sites have, i wouldnt be surprised.
And as there will be a 10 year pause on all regulations of AI, no one will be able to sue them.
if getting interviewed by AI is going to be a norm I’m creating a startup that will interview AI with AI and try to get their AI to break any law possible to sue them with.
I had to a video taped “interview” almost a decade ago where I had to dress up and then verbally answer questions which I didn’t know ahead of time. It was awful and one of the most degrading things I have ever done. The best thing was I had a survey afterwards about how the experience went. I gave it all the lowest score and wrote that I no longer want to work on a company that would put me through this.
It is going to be even worse with an AI Interviewer. What is the point of that? What are they going to learn that is different from a resume or written summary? This is the most dystopian thing I have seen in a long time.
after the interview, the robot — and the company — then ghosted them with no future contact.
For fuck’s sake, if you’re going to use a GenAI powered interview process to filter through resumes, interview and eliminate candidates, spend the ten extra seconds it takes to set up an automated follow-up email to the candidates you ruled out.
as if the current softwares dont already do that, AI probably does it faster.
Sounds like an opportunity to generate an AI version of me to attend AI driven job interviews…
I would use an avatar with speech synthesis, but I’d still type the answers for it to say (while shitposting here at the same time lol). So, basically a puppet rather than an agent.
AI reviewing AI Interviewing AI. Oh the humanity!
Businesses laying off workers instead of upping production are just using AI as an excuse
Burning hectares of rainforest when it will always be overridden to hire some dipshit’s cousin, just like they’ve always done. Fuck these shilling goblins with a piece of rusty rebar.
Recruitment and talent acquisition run by AI.
One thing good about AI is the bot will look for skills, education, knowledge, and experience. It won’t have that human unconscious bias unless we program that into it. The bad thing, it can be tricked by lying, and won’t take the “human factor” on both ends. People want to be interviewed by a person.
Pros and cons.
Sometimes getting rid of the biased human boss for a fair AI program doesn’t seem Iike such a bad idea. Reading the article, sounds worse. But it will get better. Simply because AI is cheaper so companies will perfect the AI recruiter.
AI incorporates the biases of its training data…
And with the pause on AI regulations, it will be even more biased. They’ll be using AI-powered hiring and firing for racial and gender discrimination.
One thing good about AI is the bot will look for skills, education, knowledge, and experience.
There is zero chance the AI will do that more effectively than the existing process where applications are screened for those exact things already. AI will most likely do an even worse job.
The thing is though that the entire concept of LLMs is on purpose to be bias machines ingested from the collective cesspool of humanity. Thus even absent deliberate system prompts, they whitewash the various biases to seem neutral because obviously this non-human entity is not troubled by human concerns.
But it will get better.
No.
One thing good about AI is the bot will look for skills, education, knowledge, and experience. It won’t have that human unconscious bias unless we program that into it. The bad thing, it can be tricked by lying, and won’t take the “human factor” on both ends. People want to be interviewed by a person.
