Hilke Schellmann, Emmy Award winning investigative reporter of Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributor and journalism professor at NYU, investigates the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of work. AI is now freely being used to decide who has access to an education, who gets hired, who gets fired, and who receives a promotion, After gathering exclusive information from whistleblowers, internal documents and real-world tests, Schellmann discovers that many of the algorithms making high-stakes decisions are biased, racist, and do more harm than good. Algorithms are on the brink of dominating our lives  and threaten our human future – If we don’t fight back.

She notes that AI software’s “one size fits all” approach often marginalises people with disabilities. For Instance, an AI game claimed to test job candidates’ “ processing speed” and creativity by measuring how quickly applicants could hit the space bar, putting people with motor disabilities at a disadvantage. AI, Schellmann  reveals frequently proposes ludicrous correlations because, in analysing the resumes of current  employees, they often pick up on statistically significant but arbitrary commonalities, as when one hiring tool “predicted success for candidates named Thomas or Elsie. “ Stories of people negatively affected by AI exasperate, such as the case of a recent college graduate who worked as a contract delivery driver for Amazon during the pandemic until a technical glitch triggered the automated management system to fire her. Elsewhere, Schellmann’s reports on testing various AI programs provide amusing anecdotes about the technology’s considerable shortcomings ( an automated interview program designed to assess English proficiency decided Schellmann’s English was “competent” despite her answering entirely in German. It’s striking indictment of AI’s flaws and misses.

Schellmann takes readers on a journalistic detective story testing algorithms that have secretly analysed job candidates’ facial expressions and tone of voice, She investigates algorithms that scan our online activity including twitter and LinkedIn to construct personality profiles a la Cambridge Analytica. Her reporting reveals how employers track the location of their employees, the keystrokes they make, access everything on their screens and during meetings, analyse group discussions to diagnose problems in a team, Even universities are now using predictive analysis for admission offers and financial aid.

The Algorithm: How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and fired and Why We Need to Fight Back by Hilke & Schellmann ( Hachette) $30, 336 pages