Highly Accurate, But Still Discriminatory

Artikel

The study aims to identify whether algorithmic decision making leads to unfair (i.e., unequal) treatment of certain protected groups in the recruitment context. Firms increasingly implement algorithmic decision making to save costs and increase efficiency. Moreover, algorithmic decision making is considered to be fairer than human decisions due to social prejudices. Recent publications, however, imply that the fairness of algorithmic decision making is not necessarily given. Therefore, to investigate this further, highly accurate algorithms were used to analyze a pre-existing data set of 10,000 video clips of individuals in self-presentation settings. The analysis shows that the under-representation concerning gender and ethnicity in the training data set leads to an unpredictable overestimation and/or underestimation of the likelihood of inviting representatives of these groups to a job interview. Furthermore, algorithms replicate the existing inequalities in the data set. Firms have to be careful when implementing algorithmic video analysis during recruitment as biases occur if the underlying training data set is unbalanced.

Object Details

• Language: Englisch

References and Relationships

• Bibliographic citation: Journal: Business & Information Systems Engineering ; ISSN: 1867-0202 ; Volume: 63 ; Year: 2020 ; Issue: 1 ; Pages: 39-54 ; Wiesbaden: Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden

Classification and Topics

• Classification: Allgemeines, Wissenschaft
• Subject: Fairness ; Bias ; Artificial algorithm decision making ; Recruitment ; Asynchronous video interview ; Ethics ; HR analytics ; Artificial intelligence

Contributors, Places and Time

• Event: Geistige Schöpfung
• (who): Köchling, Alina ; Riazy, Shirin ; Wehner, Marius Claus ; Simbeck, Katharina
• Event: Veröffentlichung
• (who): Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden
• (where): Wiesbaden
• (when): 2020

Further information

• DOI: doi:10.1007/s12599-020-00673-w
• Last update: 10.03.2025, 11:41 AM CET