Having artificial intelligence skills only slightly improved the chances of female job applicants from vulnerable groups of being invited to an interview in the United Kingdom, the website infohub.kz reports.
Economist Nick Drydakis of Anglia Ruskin University conducted a large-scale experiment in London to test how digital skills affect hiring discrimination. His team sent more than 3,000 fictitious CVs to real private-sector vacancies that did not require a university degree. In each case, employers received three comparable applications: one from a candidate in the majority group and two from applicants in underrepresented categories.
The vulnerable groups included Black British women, women aged 50, lesbians and candidates with autism spectrum disorder. One of the minority CVs was supplemented with a six-month certificate in automating office tasks with artificial intelligence. It turned out that majority candidates without such training received 25 percent of interview invitations. For minority applicants without the certificate, the figure was just 11 percent, and with a diploma in neural-network training it rose only to 14 percent.
The effect of the courses varied noticeably by category. The document helped lesbians and women with autism the most, while for 50-year-old candidates and Black applicants the gain was minimal. In addition, minority candidates without the certificate were more often offered vacancies with lower pay. The author of the study stressed that mastering modern technology helps open doors to professions but cannot fully replace fair recruitment rules.