Keeping the “human” in human resources: Congress may pull the plug on “Robot Bosses”
We’ve all heard the horror stories. A job seeker spends hours tailoring his resume, finally hits “submit,” and within seconds receives a rejection email in his inbox. Clearly, no human could have actually reviewed the resume. The applicant wasn’t rejected by a person; he was rejected by a pattern-matching algorithm. The “ No Robot Bosses Act ” could curtail these scenarios. The bill has bipartisan support in Congress, having been co-sponsored by Democrats Suzanne Bonamici of Oregon and Christopher Deluzio of Pennsylvania, and the Republican Delegate from Guam, James Moylan. The core premise of the proposed No Robot Bosses Act? Employers would be prohibited from relying exclusively on automated decision systems to make employment-related decisions , including whether to hire or fire. Under the proposed law, an “automated decision system” is defined broadly as follows: a system, software, or process that . . . uses computation, in whole or in part, to determine outcomes, make or aid...