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Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

unite.ai

61–70 of 108 posts

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#61
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's literally the worst.

No, compared to what I hear from other places there is no hate against men compared to what sometimes get described here; it is just that women are preferred and get slightly higher pay on average if my contacts in management are to be believed, but keeping women on board is a priority and also they pay us men very fairly.

No hate - that's an interesting perspective. Such practices, or even just results without intention, would for sure be described as hate (or something negative) if men were preferred and get slightly higher pay.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you out, you just provided description without judgment and that's great. It's just a reflection on how those topics are usually framed, and that's a sad state of affairs.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#62
I assume this controlled for the fact the genders don't apply to certain roles at the same rate? I mean I assume most people reading this right now are men simply because this site is a business/tech forum and men tend to have more of an interest in these two things.

Similarly, if I got an empty job application for a rust developer role I would expect 90%+ of time it's a man applying. If it were a UI/UX designer I'd be less confident. Maybe a 50/50 split based on my experience. Were it a social media manager role, I'd then assume it was a woman.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#63
post #62

I assume this controlled for the fact the genders don't apply to certain roles at the same rate? I mean I assume most people reading this right now are men simply because this site is a business/tech forum and men tend to have more of an interest in these two things. Similarly, if I got an empty job application for a rust developer role I would expect 90%+ of time it's a man applying. If it were a UI/UX designer I'd…

The article says

  Male and female samples were matched 1-1, and a subset obtained by pairing up the best objectively job-appropriate male and female candidates, with a margin-of-error of 2 years, in terms of experience in their field. Thus the dataset consists of 174,000 male and 174,000 female résumés.
but that is assuming you are able to match two candidates objectively.

Also "with a margin-of-error of 2 years, in terms of experience in their field" is a quite a margin for junior-mid positions.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#64
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not the computers faults that the people designing the system failed to (and probably are completely unable to) provide a proper measure of "value once hired". In the absence of a signal to tell you that you're stuck looking for proxies, and that it then ends up doing the same as many humans and assume that "past success at getting hired" is a good proxy for "value once hired" is not very surprising. The m…

If one gender really did provide more 'value once hired', would it be reasonable for the AI to favour them?

How much more value?

Suppose men were providing $10 in additional value over the time they work for you. That's barely even worth a Starbucks gift card, the sort of thing you probably give away to people who guess the number of marbles in a jar at a company mandatory fun event. You definitely shouldn't hire James rather than Deborah because of an average $10 gender difference unless they are literally interchangeable. If their sole distinguishing feature was somehow that Deborah's smile was nicer, or James' laugh was more annoying, that's probably still enough difference to out-weigh this $10 lifetime value. And the reality is your candidates just aren't that similar. Deborah's six years experience in a similar role while James is applying with no relevant background should not lead to the conclusion that all that matters is the average "value once hired" for James will be higher based on gender averages.

Now, suppose women are providing $10M in additional value. Well, I think we'd have noticed something that dramatic by now right? "Gee, my start-up with five women broke even in the first six weeks because of how awesome women are". So we can rule that sort of large figure out as implausible.

I think a discussion about whether it's reasonable needs to take the magnitude of the difference into consideration, which would first mean (if you wanted to do this) finding out for sure how large that difference even is. My guess is, if you did this, you get a very small answer and so then the discussion is really easy: No.

But before you could do that, you'd need to have a decent objective measurement of this "value once hired", and that part is far harder so it won't get done.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just a racist and sexist. The problem is you, not other people.

I'm racist and sexist (against myself) for accurately pointing out the trend where a white male dominated industry normalized drinking in the office and how that affected their definition of "culture"? https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 Or are you just insecure about your own biases.

I don't have an opinion on either side of this debate, but your link is based on a "survey with more than 1000 responders" that seems to be about the current state of things. It also doesn't talk about volume, just drinking as if every drinking is the same. I don't think it supports your claims.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the AI is just a product of it's inputs, how it's used, and whether it violates discrimination laws, are totally up to the users.

Sort of, but we have to be careful not the wash the hands of people all too willing to discard responsibility. It's correct to say "it's just statistics on data" but it also provides cover to the processes that use it. "How can you be against hiring the best person for the job" the argument goes, completely ignoring that the "best" isn't scientifically defined, and includes the same sexist biases we were trying to ge…

I read that as specifically saying that the ethical and legal responsibility is entirely on the people. (i.e. I think you're agreeing with the comment you're replying to)

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#67
post #47
post #2

> The model had learned through historical hiring data that men were more likely to be hired, and therefore rated male resumes higher than female resumes. A lot of machine learning sounds like the computers are just cargo-culting. But this concrete example is spectacularly so.

I would call it "pattern recognition" rather than "cargo culting". Cargo culting is an example where pattern recognition fails.

I mean. This seems like a good example of pattern recognition probably failing?

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are just a racist and sexist. The problem is you, not other people.

I'm racist and sexist (against myself) for accurately pointing out the trend where a white male dominated industry normalized drinking in the office and how that affected their definition of "culture"? https://tech.co/news/tech-workplace-drinking-culture-2019-02 Or are you just insecure about your own biases.

> Or are you just insecure about your own biases.

---

> Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.

> Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.

> When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."

- https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#69
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, it's not the computers faults that the people designing the system failed to (and probably are completely unable to) provide a proper measure of "value once hired". In the absence of a signal to tell you that you're stuck looking for proxies, and that it then ends up doing the same as many humans and assume that "past success at getting hired" is a good proxy for "value once hired" is not very surprising. The m…

If one gender really did provide more 'value once hired', would it be reasonable for the AI to favour them?

Yes, because of the AI is picking my brain surgeon, I want the best person, and I’m absolutely opposed to any equity, just raw talent and merit when it comes to someone operating on my brain again.

Re: Job Applicant Resumes Are Effectively Impossible to De-Gender

#70
post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, compared to what I hear from other places there is no hate against men compared to what sometimes get described here; it is just that women are preferred and get slightly higher pay on average if my contacts in management are to be believed, but keeping women on board is a priority and also they pay us men very fairly.

No hate - that's an interesting perspective. Such practices, or even just results without intention, would for sure be described as hate (or something negative) if men were preferred and get slightly higher pay. Don't get me wrong, I'm not calling you out, you just provided description without judgment and that's great. It's just a reflection on how those topics are usually framed, and that's a sad state of affairs.

> Such practices, or even just results without intention, would for sure be described as hate (or something negative) if men were preferred and get slightly higher pay.

To be clear I disagree with calling it hate also if it goes the other way.

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