According to the internal document, dated October 2021, Amazon would have worked during the final year to develop an automated resume analysis system. This artificial intelligence would be able to predict the ideal candidates for a role, and organize interviews without the involvement of a recruiter. One of the criteria used by the model is the similarity between the resumes of Amazon employees and those of people applying for the same job.
It wouldn't be the first time that Amazon has ventured into such an experiment: in 2015 an artificial intelligence for personnel selection had been withdrawn due to blatant bias that penalized female candidates. According to the internal memo, the new model would not present the same problem. The technology has already been applied to the selection of different roles, from software developers to program managers.
The use of automated systems in personnel selection can be the cause of various distortions. Algorithms can reproduce already existing discrimination against categories of people belonging to minorities or already disadvantaged, effectively reinforcing corporate culture bias. This happens because the models are trained on existing datasets, consolidating their problems, in a positive feedback loop.
Amazon has not confirmed that the reason for firing its HR workers is the adoption of this new AI model. The wave of layoffs in the technology sector has affected many companies: in addition to Twitter, overwhelmed by the chaos of the change of ownership, Meta has also cut jobs en masse. Google is said to be considering layoffs. Everything points to the boom that Big Tech experienced during the pandemic has reached its conclusion.