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Comment by neilv | Hacker News Reader

> * Social media scrapers that collect data on applicants to compile personality profiles based on what they’ve found online

> * AI-based chatbots that ask candidates questions about their qualifications, then decide if they’ll proceed in the interview process

> * Algorithmic video platforms that have candidates answer interview questions on camera, record their replies, transcribe their responses, and analyze their vocal or facial patterns for subjective traits like “openness” or “conscientiousness”

> * Logic games that purport to identify qualities like “risk-taking” or “generosity”

Alright, which one of us monsters built any of this dystopian garbage?

(We certainly are monsters with a sense of humor: see the example of deploying Kafkaesque automated snake oil gatekeeping to people's livelihoods... to seek "conscientiousness".)

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on startupschool I met several groups that are trying this. One of them, when I asked for a follow up meeting about ethics, instead took a small write up I wrote to respond to their technical needs (...literally a two page write up) and immediately sent it to upwork. Three weeks later, lol, when that didn't work out, they contacted me again. I'm not going to disclose who it was, but I have a new policy now: Absolutely, under no circumstances will I consider working with former McKinsey partners.

Merely anecdotal but my worst experiences over the last year have been with startupschool companies - not saying they’re all bad (maybe I’ve been meeting the statistical minority that aren’t great) but as a part of the community I really expected better

BTW, I totally understand the once-bitten-twice-shy, and McKinsey isn't a marginalized group needing protection, so personal aversions seem OK here. :) (I just bowed-out of an otherwise great co-founder situation, due to realizing a 2-hop connection to a party that I will never willingly go anywhere near again, even though it probably wouldn't affect the business itself.)

But I feel personally obligated to just note, for any HNers reading, that the two ex-McKinsey people I've worked with closely at a startup were both decent, and I'd work with them again.

Heh, maybe we can get McKinsey on our side, on this particular AI dystopia threat. Some hypothetical vendor-selection AI model (comparable to a hiring one) might take one look at certain past scandal involvements of the firm, and denylist anyone associated. But even organizations that don't care about individual fairness might still have to care about some AI pet project sabotaging the quality of their people and vendors.

Probably people who after interviewing their 500th bozo throughout their career, thinking "there has to be a way to automate this bullshit", or some similar B2B need that popped up over and over again that they were in a position to observe.

> 500th bozo

That seems like harsh characterization. If all of the candidates are poor matches then perhaps the recruiting system isn't working properly.

And this is their attempt to make it work properly. It's not my experience, but the experience of the hypothetical person to create such products.

Spam is ever present. They appear to be regulating captchas.

Not that this would justify it, but I'm curious if it even works. I mean I'm certain the people selling these things have some sleek presentations showing some datums with a million percent improvement, but I'm curious about for companies that have existed for some time. Does this dystopian mess even drive substantially better outcomes than they were getting using 'normal' hiring methods of the sort we've used for millennia? My intuition is screaming no.

I also think the argument that big companies wouldn't do it if didn't work is false. This is the sort of thing you're going to be able to create some big awesome presentation for, demonstrating that not only does it work, but it will end up saving you large amounts of money. Even if it does nothing of the sort. There's just so much room for number jukery, buzzwordery, and general shenaniganry - even if you never overtly lie.

Not that this would justify it, but I'm curious if it even works.

Like most other things companies do in the hiring process (e.g. endless redundant interviewing rounds, ridiculous culture fit questions) -- or the stuff they do in their day-to-day work ("Agile") -- it doesn't need to actually "work" for it to be widely adopted.

It just needs to appear to work, and to give off a warm, buzzy feeling.

> Not that this would justify it, but I'm curious if it even works.

I would think that's one of the primary concerns here, is that we can pretty much guarantee that it doesn't work. Then end result would turn hiring processes into a kafka-esque hellscape where reason has no bearing and candidates are essentially selected at random.

Given how infuriating the current crop of simulated customer service agents are, I can't imagine bringing anything like this to job selection would be good for any of us, save for the leadership team who gets to tout their cost-saving plan and give themselves a bigger bonus.

Edit: ugh after reading the article I'm so disappointed that the regulations amount to some pretty weak auditing and transparency requirements. I was hoping this was an outright ban. It seems the laws have been rewritten by the cooperations. It gives candidate "right" to ask questions about their use and possibly opt out, but all that means is anyone who speaks out will be unhireable. I mean what company is going to hire anyone who starts asserting their rights up front?

> Then end result would turn hiring processes into a kafka-esque hellscape where reason has no bearing and candidates are essentially selected at random

That’s pretty much what it is today isn’t it. You get into a room with a hiring manager and if you happen to have kids the same age or saw the same movie growing up, you’re gonna have a huge leg up.

Can we blame someone for at least trying to make a system that’s more objective

> I also think the argument that big companies wouldn't do it if didn't work is false

I think the entire history of business backs you up on this.

The focus on bias is a transparent ruse imo. Implying that a dystopian unethical process is ok because it's the same for all demographics and therefore "ok" is absurd, and that's what most of the laws or proposed laws I've seen want to focus on. It's the typical modern grift of throwing up identity politics as a big smoke bomb to obscure way worse stuff.

I've interviewed a person for a tech job who took about 15 minutes to wrestle a for loop that wasn't obviously broken into an online coding tool. It didn't improve from there. Given that people who fail interview apply to more jobs, and ok candidates get hired and don't apply for too many jobs, the number of bad candidate interviews is disproportionate... I think it would be a great idea to save time with AI.

One? One?

Buddy, it takes a village.

> collect data on applicants to compile personality profiles

I think this is inevitable, in one form or another. It will just be outsourced to some other companies which will rehash and extract whatever data, and sell services like the current background-checking companies, without even exposing any specific data to the hiring company. It's time to bit the bullet and remember that everything you say online publicly is going to remain in your permanent record, even with GDPR and stuff in place. It can't be countered by regulations, much like encryption can't be made transparent only to law enforcement by regulations. What once has been made public cannot be unmade public.

> AI-based chatbots that ask candidates questions about their qualifications, then decide if they’ll proceed

I suppose non-AI analysis of forms is not going anywhere.

> analyze their vocal or facial patterns for subjective traits like “openness” or “conscientiousness”

> Logic games that purport to identify qualities like “risk-taking” or “generosity”

I think it's just so stupid that I'd care more about my right to have disclosed the fact that a particular company does that.

On the other hand, this means that the state need to put its nose much deeper into the hiring process of a private company than it used to. It's the definition of public oversight, of course, but usually it applies to public offices.

Gotta build that moat and make it harder for anyone else to replace us before AI can.

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