AI fails a job-interview test

Artificial intelligence–powered interview software still leaves a lot to be desired, said Sheridan Wall and Hilke Schellmann in MIT Technology Review. We tested software from two firms, MyInterview and Curious Thing, that help employers sift through applications. We uploaded a fake job posting for an office administrator/researcher role on both platforms. One of us “then applied for the position and completed interviews for the role” on the sites. On Curious Thing, she “responded to each interview question by reading the Wikipedia entry for psychometrics in German,” yet the software awarded her 6 out of 9 for English competency. A repeat of the same experiment on MyInterview “put her in the top half of all applicants.” MyInterview said that the software doesn’t actually look for content; instead, the “algorithm pulled personality traits” from our applicant’s voice.

Crush.” But none of those apps work. Instead of Google’s Android operating system, the phone runs on something called “ArcaneOS.” Hidden in the calculator app is “a concealed messaging app called Anom,” through which criminals “believed they could communicate securely.” Little did they know that an international group of law enforcement agencies had created ArcaneOS and was monitoring those messages. Now the phones appear to be circulating beyond the criminal underworld. We obtained ours from someone in Australia who had bought it from an online classifieds site.