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Posted by sizzle 12 hours ago

Algorithmic Monocultures in Hiring(hai.stanford.edu)
https://algorithmichiring.github.io/

https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.27371

137 points | 145 commentspage 5
jazz9k 10 hours ago|
We can't take blanket percentages as a reason for racial bias. Were they all equally qualified?

Too many of these studies only focus on percentages and the end result is unqualified candidates getting hired from minority groups at the expense of qualified ones.

gacgacgac 10 hours ago|
Please read the study or at least the comments here before jumping to the conclusion. Yes, they used constructed resumes, so the qualifications were exactly the same. And no, literally no one is suggesting this proves racial discrimination. It's applying the four fifths rule, a fast, coarse evaluation that is used to identify if maybe theres worth investigating more for a conclusive evidence of racial discrimination.

The authors are saying it's worth doing more research, because in a controlled data set the results appear unbalanced.

Oras 10 hours ago|||
> Please read the study or at least the comments here before jumping to the conclusion. Yes, they used constructed resumes

Looks like you didn't read the paper. There are no resumes involved. It is about assessment games.

etchalon 7 hours ago|||
I think you're confusing this specific study with a different study, which did use duplicative resumes, and has been repeated:

https://www.aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/0002828042002561

jmyeet 10 hours ago||
Many people seem to think racism begins and ends with using a slur. You can usually get a measure of this by seeing someone's reaction to the statement:

> There is no such thing as anti-white racism.

If you find yourself wanting to disagree with that then, I'm sorry but you simply don't know what racism is. Racism is pervasive, insidious and systemic.

A good example in the hiring space is what's called the "second syllable name problem". Traditionally Afrcian names often stress the second syllable (eg Jamal, Lakisha, Malik, Lashonda). Studies have shown that such names have higher rejection rates in job applications [1]. So if you're wondering about the four-fifths rule, it's because it exposes this kind of bias. It's not proof of bias. It simply means further investigation is required.

The problem with AI hiring tools is the logic is opaque. You have no idea why an AI system is rejecting or selecting candidates and you may find it's doing something illegal. Some companies want to hide behind this opaqueness, arguing that if no explicit decision was made then there is no bias. But that's not how system racism works.

There are many such signals that correlate with race that if they affect selection rate, it could be a problem. Did you go to an HBCU? Was your high school in a minority-majority area? What about your previous employers?

This kind of bias doesn't have to be intentional.

[1]: https://www.npr.org/2024/04/11/1243713272/resume-bias-study-...

kbelder 9 hours ago||
> > There is no such thing as anti-white racism.

> If you find yourself wanting to disagree with that then, I'm sorry but you simply don't know what racism is.

You are saying that if you think anti-white racism can exist, you don't know what racism is. That's obviously ludicrous.

etchalon 7 hours ago||
There are essentially two definitions of racism at this point.

The colloquially version, which means "prejudice based on race" and a second version, which specific groups and people have advocated for, which means something like "structural oppression through cultural and governmental means". It's more complicated than just that, but it's a fairly narrow term for them.

So when one person says "there's no such thing as anti-white racism", you hear, "No one's prejudiced against white people for being white!" Obviously, that's ludicrous.

But that person is likely using the, I have no idea what to call it, "advocate definition" maybe, definition would which preclude anti-white racism from existing within that narrow definition of racism.

So it's a debate where people aren't speaking the same version of a language, convinced each other are uninformed, reactionary or stupid.

peyton 9 hours ago||
[flagged]
anonfunction 11 hours ago|
This is something I've been working on exposing to AI labs through my startup LatentEvals[1], and found similar results in other industries from lending to insurance claims.

Happy to share some sample reports if anyone is interested!

1. https://www.latentevals.com/

etchalon 11 hours ago|
Don't have much to add beyond being grateful for everyone working to call this out, with a hope some lawsuits drop and our SCOTUS doesn't decide racial bias in AI is fine because we can't prove the AI is racist in its heart.