AI use in Employment Decisions might Violate ADA

The US federal government is warning employers that using artificial intelligence technology to screen new job candidates or even monitor worker productivity could be discriminatory against people with disabilities.

This US Justice Department and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission are issuing guidance.

Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the department's Civil Rights Division said:

"We are sounding an alarm regarding the dangers tied to blind reliance on AI and other technologies that we are seeing increasingly used by employers. The use of AI is compounding the longstanding discrimination that jobseekers with disabilities face."

Among the examples of possible problematic tools:

• resume scanners

• employee monitoring software that ranks workers based on keystrokes

• game-like online tests to assess job skills

• video interviewing software that measures a person's speech patterns or facial expressions

Read more from the EEOC here.