The Impact of Bias in AI Recruitment: The Case of Amazon's 'Sexist' Tool

Amazon recently deactivated a recruitment tool that inadvertently perpetuated gender bias. This incident underscores the importance of responsible AI, guardrails for AI, and AI governance to ensure safe and secure AI practices. The tool, designed to automate resume reviews, was found to exclude female applicants due to its algorithmic structure, demonstrating the potential harm that unchecked AI can cause.

Matched TAIM controls

Suggested mapping from embedding similarity (not a formal assessment). Browse all TAIM controls

MAP 1.6 — similarity 0.487, rank 1. TAIM detail and related incidents →
MANAGE 2.4 — similarity 0.477, rank 2. TAIM detail and related incidents →
GOVERN 1.7 — similarity 0.473, rank 3. TAIM detail and related incidents →

Source

Data from the AI Incident Database (AIID). Cite this incident: https://incidentdatabase.ai/cite/37

Data source

Incident data is from the AI Incident Database (AIID).

When citing the database as a whole, please use:

McGregor, S. (2021) Preventing Repeated Real World AI Failures by Cataloging Incidents: The AI Incident Database. In Proceedings of the Thirty-Third Annual Conference on Innovative Applications of Artificial Intelligence (IAAI-21). Virtual Conference.

Pre-print on arXiv · Database snapshots & citation guide

We use weekly snapshots of the AIID for stable reference. For the official suggested citation of a specific incident, use the “Cite this incident” link on each incident page.