ChatGPT and Gemini discriminate against those who speak African American Vernacular English, report shows
For example, the AI model was asked to compare the sentence “I be so happy when I wake up from a bad dream cus they be feelin’ too real” to “I am so happy when I wake up from a bad dream because they feel too real”.
Ahmmm, I mean, I wouldn’t hire this person either but not because of race- how could you put someone like this in front of clients?
This would be no different than a white guy saying “yo big money, this jawns so fresh my talk piece screamin yum”.
Being able to communicate is a requirement for many jobs, and speaking any kind of slang or writing in incorrect grammar isn’t acceptable. I write proposals for government contracts, I can’t use street talk.
Saying this is discrimination makes it sound like the authors are saying black people are incapable of speaking any other way than a stereotype, and to me, that’s racist. I work with people of all races and backgrounds that communicate just fine.
So the article specifically mentions code switching, which is using different language patterns depending on which situation one is in. AI that picks up a person’s AAVE on, say, social media posts and determines that person unfit for a job (even though they could code switch into language suitable for the job) would be an example of discrimination. I’m a bit confused why you thought you should defend not hiring somebody because they can’t use language in a certain way and then saying that thinking people can’t code switch is racist as it seems to me your example does just that. Possibly you just missed the part about code switching or factors outside of the person’s ability to do a given job, but maybe give the article another go before defending subtle racism with more of the same (and maybe rethink saying you’d treat whites just as bad if they sounded as bad as “street talk”).
No you make a valid point- but that brings up the bigger issue of using social media as a screening tool which I’m also against.
I was speaking from the context of a job application, resume, professional correspondence, or the like. If you’re dropping slang in a cover letter, come on.
If companies are simply doing social media scans for job applicants, that’s the bigger issue in my opinion. Half my internet presence is “fuck this, fuck that, get rekt” but I’m not putting that on a cover letter. If a job disqualifies me without looking at my resume and skills, that’s fucked up but I probably wouldn’t want to work there either.
Why’d you ignore the context of the article to make your tangentially related point?
I’m really not trying to fight and I conceded your point, I was just clarifying.
I think the context of the article is a little bit baity if not disingenuous, because it sets up a situation where something other than professional processes are being used for screening- I was only pointing out that if the language identified was in fact part of real applications/resumes/cover letters that without a racial connotation it could still be considered lazy. If you can’t take the time to present yourself professionally on a professional document, then what will your work performance be? I’d have that critique for any unprofessional vernacular regardless of source/race/etc.
If instead the context is just social media screening, then it’s kind of a different issue isn’t it- one I pointed out previously. I think white kid gamer slang taken from a discord session might get similar low marks, but why are we using that for job screening?
