This is why we need less humans and more AI/ML in the candidate selection process.

The guy posing Arab Spring interview questions sounds just like those 65 year old talent scouts in MoneyBall skipping over a talented 3rd baseman because the kid “doesn’t have good legs.” Humans are immensely stupid and irrational when it comes to judging other humans.

I wonder what makes you think AI/ML is better.

My same question. If we make terribly biased decisions, why would something with those biases baked in make any better decisions?

Maybe because they're faster?

You train the AI based on outcomes, not based on humans' judgments of what they expect outcomes to be.

But if your training data is based on previous decisions made using human bias, you're in trouble.

ML can be used as an unbiased random number generator, unlike humans.

If it's a random number generator, it's not ML. If it's unbiased, it's also not ML. ML is always biased based on the data you train it with, just as any student is biased based on the information they are educated with.

If you trained it on data that wasn't useful at all it would be an unbiased random number generator.

The overall goal of AI/ML is not to replace the candidate selection process but to replace the candidate.

what data would you train your machine with?

Its actually not such a stupid answer. Its completely inhumane etc but it worked well for Saddam Hussein (among others) who conducted a purge on taking office in 1979 and then never had his leadership questioned again.

Because that's what you want in your organisation. The person best at being an unchallanged dictator.

Execpt the question isn't about an organization or company its about running a country and there are a lot of countries where democracy just does not seem to be suited/desired, unfortunately.

That’s what makes the question hard. It’s what would you do in this politically dire situation to lead a country while at the same time impressing an interviewer so you can get a job.

Would you want to work for Saddam Hussein?

Of course not - but plenty did.

And now he's very, very, dead, earlier than he would have been naturally. On top of that, history will not remember him fondly.

Hardly a success story, in my opinion.

well he was the leader for 24 years and outlasted pretty much all democratic leaders from in his time. I'm not saying I recommend doing what he did and you are right history will definitely not remember him fondly along with many other cruel leaders. But his tactic was effective and I'd say you could argue that he would have been the leader much longer if he hadn't pissed the west off in 91 and if 9/11 hadn't happened.

It would t surprise me if a lot of these stupid questions were actually useful because they indirectly measure something else. On that note, assigning lengthy interview projects is probably a good proxy for “won’t negotuate to hard on his salary”.

But as an employee, I’d sure prefer being treated like a human being...

The OP mentioned that this interview questioned worked for them. So, at face value, seems to work?

The thing is all these weird interview strategies work at some level. Its very self-reinforcing. If a company kept hiring duds, they would change their interviewing style.. or simply go out of business after hiring enough dummies.

> Asking a politically charged question on statecraft and judging the answer based on your own personal ideas about how to run a state strikes me as a bizarre way to conduct an interview, even for an exec.

Seems like exactly what you want so you don't get people who will be playing the opposite sort of political games than you want (whichever sort you may prefer).

He's hiring an exec who will presumably have to operate within his company. If the exec's thought process differs too much from his personal ideas, both the exec and the company are gonna have a bad time.