As press releases go, it was a mic drop moment.
On September 4, Openai Announced that it was coming after linkedin. And it was coming after job search specifically.
For there unfamiliar with the story, it was reported across multi sources that not content with torpedoing google, education, interpersonal relationships, and enter indestry as psychiatry Management Consultancy (Both Smugly Considered Untouchable Until about 15 minutes), Openai is no-coming after the age-c-industry of human Resources.
Specifically, the $ 300 billion company wants to streamline the process of hiring by automatically matching candidates to roles via context alone, with the need for titles, résumés, applications, Screening – A Fully Automated, Frictionless Match Between Resource and Need, Run at Zero Cost in a Fraction of the time it would take takey from becky from Hr to Book Meeting ROM 14b Next TuesDay, But With Near-infinite scope and efficiency.
It’s sum another cold, logical extension of artificial intelligence’s purported ability to Reduce Human Intuition Down to a Series of Predictable Algorithmic Factors.
Linkedin Dethroned?
Now, let’s be fair. Openai’s Proposition Assumes (Probably right) Moreover, the press release Breathlessly Proposes an Openai Academy, One that will train the machine the machine-picked workers of the future on how to the best serve their artificial overlords.
But will this really be enough to dethrone linkedin? An incumbent platform of over 1 billion people who go Canva-Selfies of Their Weekend GetAway to Puglia?
Perhaps we should first recognize that Human Resources is one of the oldest and most safeguarded functions with the corporate world, holding Out defiantly as Personal assistance, and Evennd Marketing has been variously usurped by automation.
It’s a curiously old-fashioned industry in many, related on Judgments about physical appearance and behavioral norms, soch as Eye Contact and Puntuality –Cetuality –CCTULITICS THECTICS Other sector would be subordinated to one’s ability to deliver value or output.
But recently, hr has gone through something of a transformation, and it’s safe to say that linkedin has been at the heart of that.
In Fact, The World’s Larges Business Platform Been An Unwitting Catalyst for an onslaught of ai-driven fraud-Both from Both from Candidates (Either Building Fake Ai Profiles or eat replancing themsels Zoom interviews with omniscient ai avatars), or from dubious recruiters (Leveragging Advanced Ai Tools to Build Fictial Companies in Order to Solicit Pairs or Personal detail details).
The market is now flooded with ai cover letters, Ai Résumés and AI-Curated Portfolios, While on the other side of the table, the screening process is often (and Increasingly) Handed off to Ai Scanning Software, In order to save Valuable Time Filtering Out Unsuitable Candidates Before Proceeding to a Final interview –one that May Ultimately be conducted and processed by an ai avatar.
Surely then it’s simply a short step to full automation, one that removes these very ghosts in the hiring machine?
Perhaps. But i’d sugges that any scholar of Organizational psychology would hold a very different view.
The Intangibles
We can look, for example, at evidence highlighting the predictive power of nonverbal cues A 2022 Harvard business review Piece, on the other hand, cautioned that automated interviews may be prone to missing these types of “intangible” characteristics – potentially valuable employe attributes (Say, Curiosity or Reseance) Might only be registered via live human interaction.
Yet Suffice to say, these same factors are also also subjective. Economists have long shown that Reliance on Intuition and First Impressions Can also be a Major Source of Bias in Recruitment, Perpetuating Disparities Around Race, Gender, and Class.
Ai Proxies
Whatever the case, the stark reality is that we now find orselves in an era where a growing Majority of both candidates and recruiters are using ai as proxies. And in this world, the very notion of authentic observation – WHETHAR HELPFUL or Not – Is Starting to Erode.
But – I hear you cry as one – Surely hr isn’t just about hiring? It’s about People Management, Professional Development, Organizational Health, and So many other things?
Yes -except that of all these functions, hiring has been recorded the highest Amount of dedicated Resource, Training, and Physical Presence, Far Outstriping What Can Now BE DONE ARAS SUCH Coaching, psychometric testing, and even therapy. If we delegate the very function of Organizational Building Itself, What remains must necessarily become daminished, at Least in Part.
To circle back then to Openai, Perhaps ITERAVE MACHINE Learning will finally win out. Perhaps time might tell us that the match between employee and role is life-faless in an Ai, Dehumanized World. And Yet, it may also be this very unpredictable of human nature that
And as to the suggestion that openai’s hiring platform will take down linkedin itself?
If it can somehow balance Hiring Efficiency with the High Level of Fluffy, Eye-Plasing Pseudo-Busines Interactions That Now So Predominate on LinkedIN ITSELF, perhaps.
But to do that, you’d need to first undress a little of the idiosyncrasies of human nature, in order to build (and foster) an appropriate “Sticky” forum – in for the reason that “Busines” is a gateway inn Many other areas of recreational and emotional life.
And Doing that, I’M Afraid to Say, Still requires a deeply human sensibility.
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