{"id":9237,"date":"2021-11-30T21:01:51","date_gmt":"2021-11-30T21:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/TheNextWeb=1374611"},"modified":"2021-11-30T21:01:51","modified_gmt":"2021-11-30T21:01:51","slug":"dear-ceos-youre-getting-ripped-off-by-legal-ai-scams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/?p=9237","title":{"rendered":"Dear CEO\u2019s, you\u2019re getting ripped off by legal AI scams"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/img-cdn.tnwcdn.com\/image\/neural?filter_last=1&amp;fit=1280%2C640&amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Fcdn0.tnwcdn.com%2Fwp-content%2Fblogs.dir%2F1%2Ffiles%2F2021%2F11%2Fsnakeoil.jpg&amp;signature=0b7af6afeafb84c672a31cf78147c479\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<p>What if I told you I was selling a set of computer programs that could automagically solve all of your hiring, diversity, and management problems overnight? You\u2019d be stupid not to at least listen to the rest of the offer, right?<\/p>\n<p>Of course no such system exists. The vast majority of AI products purported to predict social outcomes are blatant scams. The fact that most of them are legal doesn\u2019t stop them from being snake oil.<\/p>\n<p><span>Typically, the following AI systems fall under the \u201clegal snake oil\u201d category:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span>AI that predicts recidivism<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>AI that predicts job success<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>Predictive policing<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>AI that predicts whether an individual will become a criminal or terrorist<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>AI that predicts outcomes for children<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span>The reason for this is simple: AI cannot do anything a human (given enough time and resources) could not themselves do. Artificial intelligence is not psychic and it cannot predict social outcomes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>As associate professor of computer science at Princeton University Arvind Narayanan said in<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cs.princeton.edu\/~arvindn\/talks\/MIT-STS-AI-snakeoil.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\"> a series of recent lectures<\/a> on snake oil AI:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"6\">\n<p><span>These problems are hard because we can\u2019t predict the future. That should be common sense. But we seem to have decided to suspend common sense when AI is involved.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Think about it, have you ever heard of a big business that\u2019s never made a single hiring mistake?&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>These systems work on the same principle as the magic beans from <\/span><i>Jack and the Beanstalk<\/i><span>. You have to install the systems, pay for them, and then use them for an extended period of time before you can evaluate their effectiveness.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That means you\u2019re being sold on <\/span><i>statistics<\/i><span> up front. And, when it comes to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.forbes.com\/sites\/news\/beyond-black-box-ai?sh=35170b1c49c4\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">benchmarking black box AI systems<\/a>, you may as well be measuring how much mana it takes to cast a fireball spell or counting how many angels can dance on the head of a pin: there\u2019s no science to be done. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Take HireVue, one of the most popular AI-hiring system vendors in the world. Its platform can <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hirevue.com\/resources\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">purportedly measure<\/a> everything from \u201cleadership potential\u201d to \u201cpersonality\u201d and \u201cwork style\u201d from a combination of video interviews and games.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>That sounds pretty fancy, and HireVue\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.hirevue.com\/solutions\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">statistical claims<\/a> all seem quite impressive. But the bottom line is that AI can\u2019t do any of those things.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>The AI doesn\u2019t measure candidate quality, it measures a candidate\u2019s adherence to an arbitrary set of rules decided on by the platform\u2019s developers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>Here\u2019s a snippet from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/a81245ee-9916-47e2-81b9-846e9403be00\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener noreferrer\">a recent article<\/a> by the Financial Times\u2019 Sarah O\u2019Connor that explains how silly the video interview process really is:<\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote readability=\"10\">\n<p><span>While it\u2019s hard to communicate naturally in such an unnatural situation, the platforms simultaneously urge jobseekers to \u201cbe authentic\u201d to have the best chance of success. \u201cGet excited and share your energy with the camera, letting your personality shine,\u201d HireVue advises.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><span>Unless you\u2019re being hired to be a TV news anchorperson, this is ridiculous. <\/span><\/p>\n<p>\u201c<span>Energy\u201d and \u201cpersonality\u201d are subjective ideas that can\u2019t possibly be measured, as is \u201cauthenticity\u201d when it comes to humans.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>HireVue\u2019s systems, like all AI purported to predict social outcomes, are nothing more than arbitrary discriminators.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>If the only \u201cgood\u201d candidates are those who smile, maintain eye contact, and exhibit the right \u201cauthenticity\u201d and \u201cenergy,\u201d then candidates with muscular, neurological, or nervous system disorders who can\u2019t do those things are instantly excluded. Candidates who don\u2019t present as neurotypical on camera are excluded. And candidates who are culturally diverse from the creators of the software are excluded.&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span>So why do CEOs and HR leaders still insist on using AI-powered hiring solutions? There are two simple reasons:<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span>They\u2019re gullible enough to believe the vendor\u2019s claims<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span>They recognize the value in being able to blame the algorithm<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span>Here are some other scientific and (well-sourced) journalistic resources explaining why AI purported to predict social outcomes is almost always a scam:<\/span><\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/thenextweb.com\/news\/dear-ceos-youre-getting-ripped-off-by-legal-ai-scams\">Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What if I told you I was selling a set of computer programs that could automagically solve all of your hiring, diversity, and management problems overnight? You\u2019d be stupid not to at&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9238,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9237"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.londonchiropracter.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}