UVa Marketplace; Studying the role of minority groups and AI-assisted recruiting

My STS Research Paper is designed to study algorithm and recruiting bias underlying AI-assisted recruiting technologies. I aim to discover a solution which will reduce bias and in consequence benefit diversity. Given the recurring effect this technology and society have on each other my solution will not be definitive and will be based on strategies that can be implemented over time as this technology progresses. After careful research there are two ways Artificial Intelligence assisted recruiting can be used to benefit diversity. The first is by ensuring the algorithm recruits from diverse talents pools while making sure no specific groups are weighted as more important than others. This solution is entirely data-driven and will depend on the data scientists working on the integrity of the data. I suggest this is a short-term solution approach that can have great benefits to minority groups. The second solution which has been implemented by many now-a-day companies is to reduce bias by improving company culture and promoting diversity in leadership teams. This is a cultural-approach and I suggest this is the best long-term solution. Culture is essential to technological growth and provides a wider mindset to developing teams when building technologies. As companies devote their resources and time to promote diversity teams’ culture, mindset improves drastically and this change ensures technologies are built for all groups of people that better represent our world.

Me and my team propose to create a “U.Va. Craigslist” marketplace where students can sell old items to other students inside a secure and trustworthy online service. Our technology will be solely based on peer to peer marketplace which Is essentially a business model where buyers and sellers can exchange products or services. Even though this business model can provide many advantages to both the customers and the business there is one major problem this business model faces. This problem is the fraudulent activities that can arise in such a market. However our service will rely on NetBadge to prevent these fraudulent activities. NetBadge is essentially a gatekeeper used to verify user identity between users and websites, services or applications at the University of Virginia. Using this security measure, we help reduce the risk of getting scammed by limiting the interaction between users to only allow interactions with other students or Faculty. By using NetBadge we would be able to hold students or Faculty accountable and provide a trustworthy site to exchange products or services. This Project is solely implementation based.

School of Engineering and Applied Science
Bachelor of Science in Computer Science
Technical Advisor: Nada Basit
STS Advisor: Bryn Seabrook
Technical Team Members: Jack Workman, Johnny Choi