Re:Google Fires Employee Behind Controversial Diversity Memo
by mikeash on Monday August 07, 2017 @11:53PM
(#14954041)
Correct, because bias is prevalent and almost impossible to avoid.
For example: does any part of your interview involve a subjective evaluation? If so, do any of the evaluators know the candidates' names? If so, congratulations, your process is probably biased! http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/...
That's literally all it takes: some human judgment and some way to guess at the applicant's race. The discrimination can happen subconsciously. You and I would probably fall victim to it despite our best intentions.
Nobody knows how to screen job applicants for pure merit without bias. If it's a choice between "our process is imperfect just like everybody else's" and "we stumbled upon the perfect unbiased screening process and all bias in the output is due to inherent variation in the population," bet on the first one every time. It's about a million times more likely.
For example: does any part of your interview involve a subjective evaluation? If so, do any of the evaluators know the candidates' names? If so, congratulations, your process is probably biased! http://www.politifact.com/punditfact/statements/2015/mar/15/...
That's literally all it takes: some human judgment and some way to guess at the applicant's race. The discrimination can happen subconsciously. You and I would probably fall victim to it despite our best intentions.
Since the manifesto we're discussing is mostly about gender, it's worth mentioning that the same thing happens there: http://m.pnas.org/content/109/41/16474.abstract
Nobody knows how to screen job applicants for pure merit without bias. If it's a choice between "our process is imperfect just like everybody else's" and "we stumbled upon the perfect unbiased screening process and all bias in the output is due to inherent variation in the population," bet on the first one every time. It's about a million times more likely.