The value of human choice in HR decisions

Human resources managers are frequently turning to artificial intelligence to help make employment decisions, leaning on recommendations from algorithms to decide who to interview and who to hire. Traditional interviews can be costly and prior behavioral research suggests humans are poor predictors of performance and fit.

However, a new paper based on research led by Vikram R. Bhargava, assistant professor of strategic management and public policy at the George Washington University, underscores the necessity of maintaining human choice in these HR processes rather than relying on AI alone. The work is published in the journal Business Ethics Quarterly.

“Even if concerns around data and bias in AI software are ultimately improved through an engineering solution, it still doesn’t settle the question of whether HR managers should defer to algorithms. This is not because our gut instincts are far superior—often they’re not,” Bhargava says. “Rather, this is because there are important (and overlooked) ethical values created through us making choices—including choices about whom to work with or not work with—that would be jeopardized, were HR managers to abdicate that choice to an algorithm. This is so, no matter how sophisticated algorithms ultimately become at predicting the fit and performance of an employee.”