[tzs]

> It claims to micro-analyze facial expressions, intonation, non-verbal signals while the candidate is interviewing. This is vile, hostile interaction in my opinion.

Is your objection to the use of those things in general, or just to the use of an AI instead of a human to evaluate them?

I'm curious because these things are just, I think, the components that go into demeanor and humans routinely use demeanor to judge how much trust to put into what someone else is saying.

In fact, one of the main reasons that witnesses in a criminal trial in the US testify in person in front of the jury is so that the jury can see their demeanor and use it to judge credibility.

I'm pretty sure almost every human interviewer uses demeanor evidence, albeit not consciously. Short of eliminating face to face interviews I doubt that there is a way to stop such judging because it is almost completely unconscious.

[adityab]

You raise a good point. My answer is:

I understand the idea of doing probablistic inference about people based on their demeanor. We do it all the time with our minds, indeed many aspects of society and culture are built around non-verbal communication.

I'm okay with how things currently are, because we are innately capable of learning behavior policies for social interactions, while preserving a lot of cognitive privacy. In other terms, you can consciously control your demeanor (as the word is currently understood).

I afraid of inferences drawn from sub-conscious demeanors and involuntary information leaks.

Normal humans will not be able to tell if someone is nervous or afraid or angry just by looking at them, if that someone wants to maintain a pokerface. But it is entirely possible to read someone's pulse by recording a video of their skin, thus taking away some privacy of the mind [1].

We haemorrhage a lot of information all the time. As far as I know, current polygraph tests are trash, but I would be unsurprised if some characteristic features were to be found in a video+audio stream of someone's face that would estimate with good accuracy and precision that they were lying.

We all lie. To others and to ourselves. Within limits, lying is an integral part of healthy life. A world where I cannot casually lie is not one where I can live in; cognitive privacy is important.

[1]: http://people.csail.mit.edu/mrub/vidmag/

[seangrant]

My understanding is that their objection is to having a black box AI that can make or break a hire. What's to stop them from not hiring anyone because "the box said no"? What's to stop the hiring process from being entirely composed of the black box, with nobody knowing what it takes to beat? Sure you have the skills and experience, but unfortunately your facial pattern makes you seem impersonal. Don't worry, they'll keep you on file just in case.

[brador]

Wouldn't the free market solve for this? I mean if the AI system leads to worse hires the company hiring using it's signals will suffer in the market and ultimately lose out to a superior competitor who picked up hot superstar rejects with facial ticks on the cheap, right?