Artificial intelligence, if created and implemented responsibly, can help increase diverse, equitable, and inclusive recruitment and retention, DEI specialist Shayne Halls said during a University of Phoenix webinar Thursday.
Shayne Halls
Halls, president and CEO of Manifested Dreams, a company that connects organizations to AI services, spoke about the various ways AI can improve tasks and projects previously assigned to humans, removing human biases and time-intensive processes along the way.
“AI is not new. AI has been around for a very long time,” Halls said. “From Siri to self-driving cars, AI long became and is continuing to be an integral part of our daily lives. From the recommendation algorithms that curate our music playlists to chatbots that assist with customer service inquiries, these are all AI."
The event took place as part of University of Phoenix's Educational Equity Webinar Series.
It is human nature to have likes and dislikes, which lead to conscious or unconscious biases that may reflect in people’s decision-making when engaging in hiring processes. Even the most seemingly harmless conversations with coworkers – such as about vacation spots, sports teams, and shared experiences – can create kinship, and subsequently form biases, Halls said.
“Even if you have the best of efforts, the best of intentions, that doesn't stop you from being pulled into those conversations,” Halls said. “We've all been in the office when someone just comes by your desk and one conversation leads to another topic.”
AI offers a way to remove unconscious bias from the equation and create a more equitable hiring process. Systems can be programmed to ignore factors such as demographic information and assess applicant resumes more objectively, Hall claimed. And as chatbots, such systems can reduce the influence of external characteristics – appearance, accent, mannerisms – during job interviews.
