Tag: Responsible AI

This article first appeared in Forbes.

In The Outline of History, H.G. Wells, futurist, social critic and writer, wrote, “Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” 

Known mostly for his science fiction works like War of the Worlds, Wells nonetheless contributed significantly to our understanding of human affairs. In The Outline of History, which was published in 1920, he tried to capture what he referred to as “the whole story of man,” adding to the observation above the notion that: “Yet, clumsily or smoothly, the world, it seems, progresses and will progress.”

A century later, these words come to mind as we witness rapid progression in the world of work. It was only a few years ago that the “catastrophe” that doomsayers warned against was the looming robot takeover. Despite strong historical evidence suggesting that technological revolutions increase employment over time, as outlined in Carl Frey’s 2019 book The Technology Trap: Capital, Labor, and Power in the Age of Automation, it was still feared that the rise of AI and automation would result in mass unemployment. Robots and AI would ultimately take over our jobs, with no occupation safe from requisition.

Yet to Frey’s point, the history of technological progress is punctuated by stories in which the devastating consequences of mechanization ultimately gave way to unprecedented economic wealth and prosperity. The fruitful long-term results of the Industrial Revolution, he argues, foreshadowed the immense potential AI represents today.

Fast-forward a few years and it now seems as if we’re facing a totally different problem: The developed world is experiencing an employee shortage the likes of which hasn’t been seen in generations. Stated simply, the problem is not that thinking machines are taking over jobs; the problem is that there are not enough people to operate the machines.

Across industries and countries, there are currently more job openings than people looking for jobs. A thriving job market can seem positive, but underneath the statistics, the reality is far from rosy. The painful truth for individuals and organizations is that today’s strong demand for labor is very particular and favors skilled workers. People who lack modern skills risk being left behind. Unemployment can easily lead to being perpetually unemployable for those unable to upskill at pace with the labor market’s changing demands. Those who no longer look for jobs often don’t show up in the stats, but their pain is very real. At the same time, organizations that can’t find and hire skilled workers are at risk.

So considering the individual, organizational and national scale of this problem, it is clear that by now we are experiencing a real skills gap emergency of enormous proportions. A recent survey by McKinsey & Company found that 87% of companies surveyed reported having skills gaps or anticipating them within the next few years. According to Monster.com’s 2022 Future of Work report, 58% of enterprises listed “Finding candidates with the right skills” as their top challenge.

Just as Wells surmised so many years ago, the way we can avoid catastrophe is through education. The skills gap requires employers’—and their HR departments’—attention.

Today’s employees need opportunities to develop new and relevant skills to drive their career paths while employers need to stay ahead of the competition in an innovation-led marketplace. Enterprises that don’t have the capacity for upskilling workers are at risk of not only being unable to acquire the talent they need but also losing the talent they have. In one report from MIT and Deloitte, only 34% of workers reported feeling supported by their organization’s skill development opportunities; they also know that they have options at other companies where value is placed on upskilling, reskilling and continuous learning.

Employees are keenly aware that they have options; HR leaders should understand that upskilling and providing these continuous learning opportunities fall under their purview. Employers can work to close the skills gaps in their own organizations by being proactive and helping employees drive their own career paths. And amid the Great Resignation, employers are now doing more than ever it seems to retain their talent.

In upcoming installments of this series, we’ll explore the current shift of power from employers to employees and what enterprises need to do to compete, as well as the concept of continuous flow in upskilling and the age of talent intelligence.

retrain.ai is an AI-powered matching engine already prepped for the future. Structured first and foremost around Responsible AI, our solution connects the right talent to your open roles and career pathways by tapping into their skills, capabilities, and aspirations, making sure you reduce attrition and retain the right talent. To see it in action, request a demo.

UPDATE: Local Law 144 will now go into effect on April 15, 2023. Learn more about the change here.

HR technology is becoming increasingly regulated. A new law taking effect in New York City on January 1,  2023 will require companies using AI-driven employment decision systems to submit to bias audits; companies may be fined for refusal to comply. And NY is just the first–similar regulations are already being considered in California and Illinois. 

With the great resignation and war for talent continuing to accelerate, HR leaders can’t afford to lose traction in their hiring and workforce efforts due to back-fitting compliant tech systems. 

Understanding the components of responsible AI–explainability, fairness algorithms, unintended bias detection–and what to look for in a compliant solution now can mitigate that risk and continue reinforcing DEI efforts. 

That’s why we’re joining HR Tech North America Live. In our session, retrain.ai co-founder Isabelle Bichler-Eliasaf will discuss what constitutes Responsible AI, how to identify if your technology solutions are at risk, and how retrain.ai is building a Responsible AI Talent Intelligence System.

Click here to register for this free event.

If you’d like to see how our sophisticated, Responsible AI-driven Talent Intelligence platform transforms workforce planning, we’d love to show you. Book a Demo to participate in a tailored walk-through based on your organization’s specific needs for hiring, upskilling and retaining quality talent.

In our previous post, we talked about the difference between explicit skills and implied skills, and explained the Keyword Approach to skills extraction from text documents like CVs and job posts. We also outlined the importance of this automation. The right mix of precision and speed in AI deployment can:

• Accurately connect talent with the right skills to your open roles
• Achieve best-fit matches quickly, lowering cost and speed to hire
• Reduce bias
• Broaden the talent pool

Let’s now look at the second methodology.

Keywords vs. Semantics: The Semantics Approach

Semantic Analysis of text is the ability to construct logical representation of the meaning of the text as a whole, the same way we as humans understand natural language. A key factor in constructing the meaning of words is the ability to understand them based on context. For example, the word “bank” can have a different meaning depending on the context in which it appears. If a friend picks up their paycheck and says he’s going to the bank, you know he’s headed to a financial institution, not a large pile of snow, or snow-bank. 

Our automatic human understanding of the meaning of words comes from a concept called NLP–Natural Language Processing. Through NLP, we understand words based on their context; neighbor words are the most important influencers on context, but distant words can also have an effect.  

As such, if we want computers to understand words the way humans do, it means their ability to interpret a word based on the context in which it appears is a key factor.

NLP can be used to build machines that understand and respond to text or voice data in much the same way humans do. To extract skills from free-text documents like CVs, the retrain.ai Talent Intelligence Platform uses Deep Learning NLP models called transformers, a type of language model that processes each word in a sentence in relation to all the other words in the sentence, rather than processing each word individually. 

Unlike the Keyword Approach, in which text must appear in the exact same way within the CV in order to be extracted, Semantic Analysis automatically extracts skills both when they are explicitly written in the text and when they are implied by the tasks the individual describes in their CV.

For instance, using the financial analyst example from our previous post [[link]], the Semantics Approach will recognize the keyword “economics” and it will also interpret a sentence like “Maintaining and improving dashboards and calculation files of multiple reports using advanced Excel” to extract “create financial reports” as a skill. 

Conversely, Semantic Analysis will not extract a word that could be considered a skill, if it doesn’t appear in the right context. For example, if an individual describes working as an “Office Manager in the Economics Department,” Deep Learning NLP models will not detect that person has the skill “economics” just because the word is there.

Unique Needs of HR

Workforce roles and skills are evolving at breakneck speed, with new capabilities in demand and more open jobs than there are people to fill them. To optimize talent acquisition, management and retention, HR leaders need automation that speaks their ever-evolving language. 

Our retrain.ai Talent Intelligence Platform uses semantics-based machine learning models to provide the most accurate, actionable data possible. We empower enterprises to succeed through skills-based hiring, talent mapping capabilities, inner mobility and retention initiatives, and personalized learning and development programs for every single employee. 

If you’d like to see how our sophisticated, Responsible AI-driven Talent Intelligence platform transforms workforce planning, we’d love to show you. Book a Demo to participate in a tailored walk-through based on your organization’s specific needs for hiring, upskilling and retaining quality talent.