New Report Highlights Principles to Promote Responsible Use of AI for Workforce Decisions

The Center for Data Innovation has released a new report titled, “Principles to Promote Responsible Use of AI for Workforce Decisions.” The report looks at how the COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace, specifically in managing and recruiting employees. While the increased use of AI has seen great benefits in accelerating processes, it has invited unintended biases into the workplace as well. This transition to AI-enabled employee management has prompted Hodan Omaar, policy analyst at the Center for Data Innovation focusing on AI policy, to consider how policymakers can successfully develop strategies to avoid the potential biases and pitfalls of AI-enabled decisions.
 
The report, authored by Omaar, specifically outlines principles to help guide policymakers as they work to address issues of bias in AI. The eight principles outlined in the report include:
 

1. Make government an early adopter of AI for workforce decisions and share best practices.
2. Ensure data protection laws support the adoption of AI for workforce decisions.
3. Ensure employment nondiscrimination laws apply regardless of whether an organization uses AI.
4. Create rules to safeguard against new privacy risks in workforce data.
5. Regulate AI systems for workforce decisions at the national level.
6. Enable the global free flow of employee data.
7. Do not regulate the input of AI systems used for workforce decisions.
8. Focus regulation on employers, not AI vendors. 

In addition to these eight principles, the report suggests that when creating policies around AI, lawmakers must not treat AI as “too dangerous” to make sure that the true benefits of the technology can also be realized. In seeking to create policies that address potential biases of AI, a balance must be reached between effectiveness of the policies and potential overregulation of the technology.
 
To read the full report, please visit: https://www2.datainnovation.org/2021-ai-workforce-decisions.pdf.