We all know that the age of Artificial Intelligence is upon us. I have even written about some of my reservations about AI. And while I have much more to say about AI, today I'm going to talk about one place AI needs to be eliminated - job interviews.
I have had 2 AI interviews in the last month. They are the most dehumanizing way I can think of to screen out applicants. In both situations, I was asked a series of questions by a computer. It felt deeply impersonal, even as a lover of technology.
The first issue I had was that I was required to be on camera, but there was no one on the other end. There wasn't even an AI-generated character there talking to me. It was just a voice, asking questions, recording my answers. The second interview even had what looked like a mechanical eye in the middle of the screen. Reminiscent of the Terminator.
The other issue I had with these AI interviews is the actual conversation. While both AIs had your standard, pleasant tone of voice, there was no genuine warmth. You clearly knew they were not humans. Their pauses were all the same length, if they paused at all. And they didn't need to pause to think about what they were going to say or to contemplate what you just said.
Today, I had an interview with a real person. What a difference. We were able to connect on several topics. We both live in the same city, have corporate experience spanning 2 decades, and share similar technical backgrounds. The discussion was more of a conversation than an interview. I could tell they were evaluating me just as much as I was considering them.
That is how an interview is supposed to go. A couple of times, we even laughed at similar past experiences and connected on topics like work-life balance and the importance of relationships among team members. No way that was happening during those AI interviews. God made us for real relationship—face-to-face, heart-to-heart—and no algorithm can replicate that.
So, I think I am going to pass on AI interviews from now on. If a company is not willing to have a human conversation with me from the very beginning, then they won't be the right fit for me anyway. It just feels way too impersonal to be interviewed by a machine.
What do you think? Have you experienced an AI interview yet? Would you want to? I'd love to hear your experiences.
—Daniel