The state of AI regulation in 2023: A note from HireVue’s CEO

I don’t know about you, but since ChatGPT arrived on the scene, I’m really noticing all of the places where I interact with AI. I’m a bit more skeptical of inbound messages on LinkedIn and email – reading everything and trying to detect if it was actually written by the sender or an algorithm.

While my sensitivity to sussing out generative AI is new, the public’s general skepticism toward artificial intelligence has been building for years, and legislators and governing bodies are paying close attention to the ways AI could be misused in high stakes situations (from medical care and criminal justice to hiring decisions and credit allocation). 

Trends in legislation in 2023

The volume of proposals and guidance can be difficult to keep up with, from NYC local law 144, to the European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act, and DC’s Stop Algorithmic Bias Act. Our General Counsel and Science Teams diligently track everything coming through and I asked them to sum up the themes they’re seeing across the board, which are: 

1. Requiring 3rd party audits for bias
2. Providing clearer consent terms to end users
3. Implementing stricter data privacy and data retention policies
4. Giving more advanced notice when AI will be used in the hiring process

We have been actively submitting comments during public hearings, meeting with regulators and ensuring that any laws that are passed take a holistic view of hiring and include the voices of candidates, customers, vendors and researchers. We have six criteria we’d like to see taken into account with new laws, and we’ve been bringing them into every session as a framework:

1. Uniform audit criteria must be defined in the context of automated employment decisions tools
2. Hiring algorithms should be static (rather than dynamically changing in the wild)
3. Audits must be required for all automated employment decision making tools, not just those that use machine learning
4. Notice & transparency to empower candidates 
5. Employers need to be obligated to supply demographic data
6. Vendors should deliver audits – this is too great a burden to place on customers

HireVue’s guiding ethos for AI regulation

HireVue welcomes legislation related to the potential impact of all hiring technologies as it encourages transparency and improves the process and fairness for all candidates. Legislation like this demands that all vendors meet the high standards that we have supported since the beginning. To distill our AI ethical principles down even further, these are some guiding statements for how we approach working with legislators and governing agencies to create best practices:

1. We know that access to employment is a key determinant of health. Because of this, HR tech vendors must act as ethical stewards. 
2. Innovations in artificial intelligence have outpaced regulatory safeguards and hiring tech will benefit from improved standards.
3. Outdated EEOC guidelines and federal standards for fairness (e.g. the 4/5ths rule and protected class designations) should be updated and improved to reflect today’s modern workforce.
4. Technology has a critical role in mitigating bias. The transparent use of AI and automation can help create equity, but tools alone won’t solve the problems that exist. 
5. Tools with the potential for unleashing bias at scale deserve greater scrutiny.  

Outputs of our commitment to ethical AI 

Ethical AI work is an ongoing commitment, one that is never fully “achieved,” but is a constant work in progress. Bearing that in mind, here is a timeline of the major milestones in our journey toward transparency and fairness.

Supporting our customers and their candidates

Partnering with our customers to achieve a best-in-class hiring experience is inextricably linked to our commitments to both fairness and compliance. And we want you to rest assured that our entire leadership team is here if you have any questions about the changing regulatory landscape.

Still have questions about how we stay at the forefront of ethics and compliance? Schedule a demo.