'Sexist AI' tool got withdrawn by Amazon

- Anuraag Krishna
Online giant Amazon had to abandon a sexist algorithm that it had been testing as a hiring
tool. A large portion of the applicant data used to train the artificial intelligence system over a
ten-year period was provided by men. Members of the team that were working on it told that
the system had successfully trained itself that male candidates were preferred. Amazon has
not addressed the allegations. Five members of the team who created the machine learning
technology in 2014 were reached by sources, but none of them were interested in being
identified publicly.
According to what they told the media, the system was created to evaluate job applications
and assign individuals a rating between one and five stars. One of the engineers remarked,
“They basically wanted it to be an engine where I'm going to give you 100 resumes, it will
spit out the best five, and we'll hire those”.
Since the system was developed using information gathered from CVs submitted to the
company primarily by men, it was obvious that it was not grading candidates in a gender-
neutral manner. The algorithm began to penalise resumes that contained the word "women."
According to Reuters, the programme was changed to make it impartial towards the word, but
it soon became apparent that the system could not be trusted. Although Reuters reported that
recruiters briefly utilised the project and occasionally considered the suggestions the tool
produced, they never fully depended on it.
Amazon claims that the gender split of its current global workforce is 60:40 in favour of
men . According to a survey by software company CareerBuilder, almost 55% of US human
resources managers predicted that AI would be used in recruitment within the next five years.
That is not the first time that concerns have been expressed regarding the dependability of
algorithms developed on potentially skewed data.
According to a survey by software company CareerBuilder, almost 55% of US human
resources managers predicted that AI would be used in recruitment within the next five years.
That is not the first time that concerns have been expressed regarding the dependability of
algorithms developed on potentially skewed data.
Further, Amazon launched a program “Amazon WOW” where WOW stands for Women Of
the World. The major objective of Amazon's effort is to boost the representation of women in
the tech sector. Under the Amazon WoW programme, Amazon provides female applicants
with internship and full-time software development opportunities each year. Any college
student in the country may apply for this opportunity.