Feds Urge Agencies To Integrate AI Into Hiring Process

Ah, marvellous. The Trump administration has looked at the federal hiring process — that legendary temple of efficiency and merit — and concluded that what it really needs is a spot of artificial intelligence. On Thursday, per Law360, agencies were urged to use AI to craft job descriptions and evaluate applicants. Because nothing says 'we have reflected deeply on the documented failures of algorithmic decision-making' like handing HR the exact same technology that has already produced a healthy collection of bias lawsuits in the private sector.

Let us unpack this civic masterpiece. Some exhausted federal HR specialist will now feed a requisition into a chatbot, which will generate a job description that is one part 'dynamic synergy,' two parts 'must thrive in a fast-paced environment,' and entirely indistinguishable from every other posting in the entire government. Then a screening algorithm will evaluate applicants, presumably by ranking them according to their resemblance to whatever the training data decided a 'successful civil servant' looks like. I am sure there will be a robust appeal process for rejected candidates — in the same way the Titanic had a robust iceberg-detection process. The forms will be state-of-the-art; the outcomes will be reliably catastrophic.

The glorious irony is that this comes from an administration that has spent its term vowing to shrink the federal workforce — so the AI can presumably handle the jobs of the humans who used to review the AI. Before long, expect a cottage industry of consultants billing millions to 'operationalize AI hiring,' followed by a class action when the algorithm decides that every veteran, every applicant over 40, and every person with a disability is somehow 'not a culture fit.' Still, the rejection letters will be beautifully written, perhaps even with a cheerful footer: 'This decision was made by an algorithm, not by a bureaucrat. Have a nice day.' Ah well. At least the machine is impartial: it will discriminate against everyone equally.