Current RecTech tools provide business efficiency but worries over cutting-edge AI persist

Friend or foe? AI debate rages on

Recently the three internationally renowned technologists dubbed the ‘godfather’s’ of AI have weighed into the debate over the threat to humanity posed by the technology.

Geoffrey Hinton from the UK, and Canadian Yoshua Bengio voiced concerns, however, Frenchman Yann LeCun, chief AI scientist at Facebook’s parent corporation Meta, has come out on the other side.

The Australian government is one of the leaders in considering a ban on “high-risk” uses of artificial intelligence and automated decision-making, warning of potential harms including the creation of deepfakes and algorithmic bias.

This week Dame Wendy Hill, an academic at the UK’s University of Southampton and the UK government’s first Skills Champion for AI went public. Rather than coming out as for or against AI, her opinion balanced the positives with the negatives to give a more nuanced view than many others.

Responses to the impact and potential of AI contained in phrases such as ‘existential threat’, ‘more intelligent than humans’, and ‘difficult to turn off’ can seem alarming and like an over reaction. As balanced as Dame Wendy Hall’s interview was, it did contain one nugget of information to note:

“…because of these huge networks, (AI) generates information in ways we can’t unravel and find out how it did it.”

The fact that this technology has the ability to escape from our control suggests that we should be very cautious about how we proceed. Quite simply, if we are unable to understand how it works, we won’t be able to fix it when it goes wrong.

AI and the world of work

Being more pragmatic, the most immediate challenges of AI concern its impact on the world of work. Whatever the cutting-edge of the AI revolution, the AI-powered software tools that are now being applied across industry and commerce are not at a level of sophistication beyond the comprehension of development teams.

Some examples of software tools that have been recently released or upgraded that are designed to apply AI to a specific line of business include:

• Google Cloud AutoML Natural Language – AutoML Natural Language enables you to build and deploy custom machine learning models that analyse documents, categorising them, identifying entities within them, or assessing attitudes within them.
• Salesforce Einstein Prediction Builder – this Salesforce tool helps businesses to build predictive models that can be used to improve sales, marketing, and customer service.
• SAP AI Business Services – a suite of SAP tools that helps businesses to apply AI to sales and marketing, supply chain management, procurement and HR Line-of-Business processes, such as customer service, fraud detection, and supply chain management.
• IBM Watson Assistant – is a tool that helps businesses to build conversational AI agents that can interact with customers and employees to deliver consistent and intelligent customer care across all channels and touchpoints.

These are just a few examples of the many AI-powered software tools that are being released regularly. This range of capabilities seems almost mundane and at odds with the dire warnings that some critics of AI are putting forward…!

Recruitment and RecTech AI

In recruitment, the process of applying AI to RecTech has been going on for a number of years. Here are a few examples of AI RecTech that are equally focused on simplifying processes rather than trying to out-think humans!

• AI-powered chatbots – AI-powered chatbots automate many of the tasks involved in the recruitment process, such as screening candidates, answering questions, and scheduling interviews, freeing up recruiters to focus on more strategic tasks.
• AI-powered CV screening – AI-powered resume screening helps recruiters quickly identify the most qualified candidates by analysing CVs and resumes for keywords, skills, and experience.
• AI-powered interview scoring – interview scoring tools help recruiters assess candidate performance at interview, by analysing the verbal and nonverbal communication of candidates.
• AI-powered candidate matching – matching tools enable recruiters to match candidates with jobs that are a good fit for their skills and experience by analysing the data from resumes, job descriptions, and other sources to identify the best matches.

These are just a few examples of how AI is being applied to RecTech at this moment in time. As AI technology continues to evolve, it’s likely we’ll see even more innovative applications in the not too distant future.

Streamline your agency back office with ETZ

The automation features of ETZ RecTech tools promote efficiency and have paved the way for the emergence of sophisticated AI NLP search and selection tools that are emerging to power the front side of agency operations.

ETZ’s leading timesheet and invoicing solution, streamlines the back office processing of your recruitment agency. Our complementary solutions, ETZ Comply for onboarding and document management, and Caspian for business intelligence give agencies further capability to streamline and uncover opportunities. To find out more call us on 0800 311 2266 or book a demo.