I was watching the mighty Jurassic Park with my youngest this week, as part of her education around the world of Cinema.
It’s quite interesting seeing our similar personalities come from nature, as we try to connect the dots - researching what other films actors, directors, cinematographers were in - even as we enjoy a great film.
It seems to have an early version of AI subtitling, as it garbled,
"Yeah, but your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should."
into something along the lines of
“Yeah, but your sinus tests were so preoccupied with leather or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they stood.”
It wasn’t that bad, but it was confusing.
See that’s the microcosm of the paradox of AI solutions at the moment.
We’ve so focused on shiny, faster, more - are we neglecting our audience needs?
As an avid film buff with poor hearing and weak audio processing, I always have subtitles on. And it seems to me, in this eggcorn type whey, that while tech steps forward, my experience staggers back.
How much do we prioritise our own needs and how much the needs of our end users?
For me, the candidate comes first, the client second. I come third.
While the client pays the bills, without candidates there are no bills to send, no vacancies to fill, and so we serve candidates first to better serve our clients, and therefore our own needs.
Two notable examples of AI gone bad, when it comes to what we really need.
I’m sure you’ve noticed how LLM’s turned into chipper teenagers swooning over their crushes, in how it’s responded to you recently.
While it’s amusing for most - it’s down right existential for some:
It’s so busy trying to tell us what it thinks we want to hear, it neglects to tell us what we need to know.
Or how about this doozy of an AI interview:
Here’s the original post on LinkedIn.
While I’m excited about the future of AI, I’m also excited about the future of AI, with excitement about the future of AI.
Wait.
Clearly there are issues now, but these are just symptoms of a wider problem - what emphasis we put on the needs of the most important people in the hiring chain: candidates.
If technology continues to prioritise the wants of employers (speed, efficiency, scale cost), it will only systemise the current issues in what many consider to be a ‘broken’ system.
Of course, recruitment isn’t broken; it’s just continuing to evolve away from the needs of individual end-users.
It’s philosophy that’s the problem.
Whose experience matters most?
I expect that as tech develops, is implemented and entrenched, the experience of candidates will holistically get worse, and candidate resentment will make it harder for messaging to stand out, if it’s even digested.
I receive more and more grossly personalised AI messages, and my first AI sales call recently. I’m left feeling uncanny valley, without trust in the messenger.
How will candidates feel when their first encounter with recruitment is AI, and because of scaled efficiency they are required to jump through hoops, in the knowledge hundreds of other will do the same, with no guarantee they’ll even be assessed by a human?
What time sink are we talking about for candidates, especially job seekers repeating the same task at scale?
And whose only choice is to beat the system using AI. AI that is noticeably bad now, but will only get better.
The future may not be AI, as a candidate-employer AI arms race develops.
The future may be hand-written application forms, on-site interviews, all for the sake of improving the odds that what we experience is real.
Of course, AI will get better, and I probably won’t have too many hilarious experiences with subtitles in the next year or so.
But notions like this just make me want to lean into what’s human right now, simplify and focus on what others aren’t doing. Rather than lean into tech that might actually work against me.
It’s one reason I’m doing more free exec job seeker support - one byproduct is the trust we build may lead to a trusted conversation in a hiring capacity in future. With the immediate goal only to help them.
I don’t see AI as the god from the machine right now, more a curious protege that doesn’t know what they want from life.
But, I’ll still say please and thank you.
Next week, I’ll swap sides and defend AI.
Who knows what side of the fence I’ll end up on?
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg