Louisiana State University administration, including Provost Haggerty and the HR Department, has expressed interest in using AI (Artificial Intelligence) in its hiring process. This is unethical and opens up a host of problems that should be of the utmost concern to students and faculty alike. Even if the AI is intended to sort the initial applicants into three stacks based on their "quality," the entire hiring process has now been tainted by the AI's input.  

Do you want to be passed up on a student job because an AI arbitrarily decided you did not meet its criteria? Should Louisiana State University leave its hiring decisions up to an AI that can not be held accountable? These are the questions that Louisiana State University now faces, and it is up to the students to express their opposition to this interest.

This petition is intended to gather support against this interest, which is being realized as of the Fall 2024 semester. 

Below is more information on the issue. Please read:

AI raises several ethical concerns, including environmental issues, biased outputs, inconsistent results, and incorrect conclusions from training data sets. Real-life examples demonstrate the negative consequences of AI in hiring processes. For instance, as reported by Reuters, Amazon's AI was biased against female applicants and was eventually scrapped. Additionally, The Economic Times reported a case where a manager could not pass AI screening for a position in his department, leading to the termination of half of the HR department.

Moreover, knowledge of AI grading resumes may encourage applicants to manipulate their submissions to align with AI preferences, resulting in an inaccurate portrayal of their qualifications. AI can also introduce bias into the application process, potentially reflecting racial, gender, and sexual orientation biases present in its training data. The training data for this AI project comes from past application records, which could perpetuate biases from previous hiring cycles.

LSU's Equal Opportunity Employer Statement asserts the university's commitment to "providing equal opportunities for all qualified persons in employment, without regard to race, creed, color, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, religion, sex, national origin, age, mental or physical disability, or veteran's status." However, it is impossible to guarantee that the AI Resume and Application Ranker will uphold these values. Even the finest AI researchers can not explain the patterns and connections that AI relies on in its decision-making process. There is no method to eliminate bias from the AI application screening process.