[LI] Questions re AI, data, & jobs

Below are 15 separate items (not articles) posted to LinkedIn between December 2015 and December 2016 . They each consist of thought or a link plus a brief discussion.

These relate to various aspects of advanced technology – what goes under the name “artificial intelligence (AI) – data, and the job market. An underlying concern in many of these and also in the set of three posted in March 2017, is equity in development of advanced technology:

No title (posted in December 2015)

Is multi-agent systems technology capable of job-site wherein IAs of job-seekers & recruiters search, interact autonomously, learn & report?

What they’re saying,” x.ai (posted in April 2016)

Just signed up for an AI assistant to schedule my meetings. Want to be more productive too? Join me:

The Race For AI: Google, Twitter, Intel, Apple In A Rush To Grab Artificial Intelligence Startups,” CB Insights, 10 April 2016 (since revised) (posted 20 April 2016)

Of more than passing interest if @LinkedIn not in “race” for #AI. LI doing big #data. How could AI fit in LI model?

Job Ad Pricing Evolves: New model charges only if candidates apply,” SHRM, 18 April 2016 (posted in April or May 2016)

Interesting re changing paradigms in recruitment industry. Still wondering if anyone working on AI as part of next step in evolution of recruitment & job-seeking.

Siri’s creators say they’ve made something better that will take care of everything for you,” Washington Post, 4 May 2016 (posted in May 2016)

So, can I tell “Viv” to have “Amy Ingram” set up a meeting and then get my self-driving car out of the garage & ready to go? When intelligent agents communicate with each other, what “language” will they speak?

How to Take the Bias Out of Interviews,” Harvard Business Review, 18 April 2016 (posted in May 2016)

Surprised to read this in HBR: “unstructured interviews … [are] among the worst predictors of actual on-the-job performance.” Another pillar of current practice in question?

Why Artificial Intelligence Will Disrupt the Recruiting Industry,” K&K Technical Consulting Group blog, n.d. (posted 2 June 2016)

Why AI Will #Disrupt the Recruiting Industry https://lnkd.in/e939xrt @kk_technical asks: Is AI the next logical step in job recruitment?

Honeypot – The Developer Focused Job Platform,” Honeypot, n.d. (posted in June 2016)

Is “Companies Apply To You” the new thing with tech recruiting sites? Noted this pitch on a site called Honeypot.io by chance, after mentioning something similar from Hired.com in my recent LI post, “Back to the job-market-of-the-future” https://lnkd.in/e6PpaJM

Your Candidate Talent Search Will Be Powered by Robots,” LaunchPad, n.d. (posted 16 July 2016)

.@kirstielaunch on AI & recruiting: ..Talent Search Will Be Powered by Robots https://lnkd.in/eVtuG5p Logical next step: AI for job seekers?

HireVue Video Interviews: HR insults talent in a talent shortage,” Ask the Headhunter, 22 August 2016 (posted in August 2016)

Interesting discussion by Nick Corcodilos of video interviews that are analyzed by algorithms. https://lnkd.in/dakD43d (Seems like the interviewed could use some sort of intelligent agent avatar to interact with this technology?)

I commented on the article itself as follows:

Thanks for this. Although never having done a video interview, I’d naively assumed that someone in HR would actually view & evaluate the videos.

A couple additional thoughts. First, with increasing numbers of employers, jobs, people seeking jobs, and intermediaries, it seems unavoidable to have some sort of automation, but are we doing it wrong? I.e., relying on technology for things it can’t (yet) do and not knowing where to bring in the human component? Or is the technology itself not yet sophisticated enough to help in a positive way (as opposed to keyword / algorithm screening out (which btw is of course the automated version of human screening out on not much better criteria)?

Second, the use of technology such as it is in the job market, is heavily on the recruiting/HR side, but not so much on the job seeker side. Which is to say that there are a lot of resources going into automating the recruiting/hiring process, to the point where rudimentary AI is even on the table, while job seekers are given more forms to fill out and more advice on how to spend more time editing resumes. To the extent to which evolution is path-dependent, this is a matter of concern. When we get to true AI in the job market, what will the process look like

Here’s the best argument that computers could replace doctors, teachers, and even nannies,” Vox, n.d. (posted in August or September 2016)

Another interesting piece on AI & work. I’d like to see more attention to how AI (in the form of intelligent agents) might be tailored by individuals to assist in a range of tasks important to them. To a certain point, having a limited number of experts figure out how AI might do this or that for people is fundamental. But longer term, if only a limited number of people (researchers, and others motivated by less high-minded aims) are shaping the applications of AI in the socio-economy, what kind of outcomes can we expect?

Self-driving Shopping Carts Could Greet You at Walmart,” Discover, 13 September 2016 (posted 20 September 2016)

If it has wheels, there’s a good chance someone,somewhere is figuring out how to make it roll on its own https://lnkd.in/d9nXD9R #whatsnext

Your Car Is Watching You—and Wants to Sell You Stuff,” Wired, 29 September 2016 (posted 2 October 2016)

Et tu, car? Heading down a road of small compromises to others’ instrumental use of data we generate?

This software start-up can tell your boss if you’re looking for a job,” Washington Post, 6 September 2016 (posted 8 October 2016)

This software startup can tell your boss if you’re looking for a job https://lnkd.in/dhbaGBt Anything telling staff re boss’s layoff plans?

Hiring Algorithms Are Not Neutral,” Harvard Business Review, 9 December 2016 (posted in December 2016)

Saw this item thanks to Michael Erard and took the opportunity to add a brief comment. Still thinking about how data (in this case job seekers’ resumes) could be active rather than passive (role around which hiring algorithms are currently built). What if resumes themselves were also (sets of) algorithms?

My comment on the HBR article mentioned above was as follows:

What if the resumes themselves were also (sets of) algorithms, designed to put forth information about a candidate, react to screening queries, and in effect pre-negotiate with the … hiring algorithms? Resumes as passive digital text, even reworded and recrafted to include keywords and reflect the latest advice, are still a 20th century technology – one that is still labor intensive and provides no direct feedback. What if a resume could learn from how it is read and actively make inferences about matches of its own data with that on particular jobs and whole organizations? No I’m not sure exactly how this would work, but note that practically all the discussions of advanced technology in the job market currently concerns hiring and recruiters. Something’s missing. Could some sort of “self-driving resume” in addition to making the job search generally more efficient, work effectively in encounters with hiring algorithms, perhaps obviating problems like bias in hiring algorithms?


Other blogs > LinkedIn > LinkedIn articles & posts, 2017 (Jan–Jun)

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