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A federal judge in California recently considered an employment discrimination claim that involved AI. Even though it considered specific circumstances which are fairly unique and groundbreaking, this is likely to become more common practice in workplace disputes and to find application to the South African workplace in the future.

The California court considered a proposed class action lawsuit, filed by a job applicant (Derek Mobley) against Workday Inc., an American on-demand financial management, human capital management and student information system software vendor, where the lawsuit claimed that Workday's AI-powered hiring software perpetuates existing biases against job applicants, on race, age and disability.

Mobley claimed that he was overlooked for over a hundred jobs due to these biases.

In a groundbreaking ruling, even though Workday was not screening Mobley for direct employment with it, and instead relied on the results of the AI-powered hiring software to determine whether or not to put Mobley forward as a candidate for its clients, who sought candidates for employment, and as such Workday was acting in the traditional role of a recruitment agency, the California court determined that Workday could be seen as an employer under federal anti-discrimination laws because it handles screening tasks typically done by its clients.

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