Keith Sonderling, commissioner of the US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), has for years been sounding the alarm about the potential for artificial intelligence (AI) to run afoul of federal anti-discrimination laws such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
It was not until the advent of ChatGPT, Bard, and other popular generative AI tools, however, that local, state and national lawmakers began taking notice — and companies became aware of the pitfalls posed by a technology that can automate efficiencies in the business process.
Instead of speeches he’d typically make to groups of chief human resource officers or labor employment lawyers, Sonderling has found himself in recent months talking more and more about AI. His focus has been on how companies can stay compliant as they hand over more of the responsibility for hiring and other aspects of corporate HR to algorithms that are vastly faster and capable of parsing thousands of resumes in seconds.
