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The Algorithm : How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your Future - Hilke Schellmann

The Algorithm

How AI Can Hijack Your Career and Steal Your Future

By: Hilke Schellmann

Hardcover | 10 May 2024

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Hilke Schellmann is an award-winning investigative reporter. In this book, she draws on whistleblower exclusives, leaked internal documents and astonishing real-world practices to reveal the secret rise of artificial intelligence in the world of work. AI is being used, on a massive scale, to decide who gets hired, fired and promoted. But Schellmann discovers that many algorithms making these high-stakes calculations are biased or racist, and do more harm than good; and she traces their origins to troubling pseudoscientific ideas about a person's 'true' essence.


Hearing from insiders, experts, developers, campaigners and ordinary workers, The Algorithm takes readers on a fascinating and alarming quest. From software analysing interviewees' facial expressions and tone of voice, to video games used as performance assessment, to programmes constructing 'personality profiles' by scanning candidates' social media, almost all major employers harness AI in their recruitment. Then they track their employees' location, keystrokes, group dynamics, or even their physical health. 'Robots' are identifying who is productive, who is a bully, who is worth long-term investment, and who will probably quit. But can we trust them?


In a world of severe job insecurity, workplace algorithms are on the brink of dominating our lives and threatening our human future-if we don't fight back.

Industry Reviews

'The best available case study [of] ... the use of artificial intelligence by human resource departments.'

-- The New York Times, 'Top 5 Books on Artificial Intelligence'
'A cautionary tale for anyone who thought AI would take human bias out of hiring - and an essential handbook for job hunters.' -- Financial Times
'[Schellmann] walks the reader through the devastating consequences of current trends and explains why there's no easy path forward... . The Algorithm is a wake-up call.' -- Los Angeles Review of Books
'Schellmann pulls the curtain back on the AI-driven "HR tech" revolution taking over hiring and managing employees, and finds tools that are arbitrary, ineffective, discriminatory and likely unlawful. Reads like a dozen scandals waiting to erupt.' -- Gavin Mueller, author of Breaking Things at Work
'In The Algorithm, Hilke Schellmann has done the impossible: she has rendered the baffling 'Wild West' of AI immensely readable and approachable. Schellmann gives us the dark and hidden history of tech innovation and the marketplace through the stories of those whose lives have been smashed by its glitches.' -- Eliza Griswold, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Amity and Prosperity
'A disturbing investigation into use of AI systems in hiring, firing, and employee surveillance. As Schellmann demonstrates, AI has moved into crucial areas of our lives, but the process has been so fast and silent that its influence is almost invisible. She argues that HR managers should be required to understand how their algorithms work, and there must be greater human input to personnel decisions. This eye-opening book makes it hard to disagree.' -- Kirkus Reviews
'Focuses on how the technology is already deployed in personnel decisions in the workplace - with alarming results.' -- Financial Times, 'What to Read in 2024'
'[An] enjoyable and disturbing read.' -- Morning Star
'The author correctly identifies one major source of the problem as the monetary pressure involved in building AI tools.' -- Labour Hub
'One of the most important topics of our time--one that impacts all of us more than we realise. The book takes a balanced approach to illuminating the current state of AI in the workplace. It's not just about incredible benefits or doomsday scenarios, but a real look into the current state of these tools, the incentive systems driving their proliferation, the mixed results they provide, and how we might ensure better outcomes. Highly recommended.' -- Ryan Fuller, former vice president for workplace intelligence, Microsoft
'A fresh, important perspective on how AI is changing many critical workplace decisions in organizations. Schellmann's research is thorough and clever, and exposes the many of problems that AI and its proponents have already created for companies and employees.' -- David Futrell, former senior director of organization performance, Walmart
'Hilke Schellmann was one of the first journalists to understand the dangers of AI passing judgement on workers, and The Algorithm is an absolutely vital book about the risks and harms of the systems already operating - on us - today.' -- Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody

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