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A public interest group filed a U.S. federal complaint against artificial intelligence hiring tool, HireVue, in 2019 for deceptive hiring practices. The software, which has been adopted by hundreds of companies, favored certain facial expressions, speaking styles and tones of voice, disproportionately disadvantaging minority candidates.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center argued HireVue's results were "biased, unprovable and not replicable." Though the company has since stopped using facial recognition, concerns remain about biases in other biometric data, such as speech patterns.

Similarly, Amazon stopped using its AI recruitment tool, as reported in 2018, after discovering it was biased against women. The algorithm, trained on male-dominated resumes submitted over 10 years, favored male candidates by downgrading applications that included the word "women's" and penalizing graduates of women's colleges. Engineers tried to address these biases, but could not guarantee neutrality, leading to the project's cancellation.

These examples highlight a growing concern in recruitment and selection: while some companies are using AI to remove human bias from hiring, it can often reinforce and amplify existing inequalities. Given the rapid integration of AI into human resource management across many organizations, it's important to raise awareness about the complex ethical challenges it presents.

Ways AI can create bias

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