Your Robot Job Interview: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

In this candid discussion, the guys explore the nuances of **AI rejection** and the challenges associated with **how to deal with that rejection**. The conversation touches on feelings of **how to get over rejection** related to personal well-being in a new world where robotic figures appear to manipulate the most vulnerable among us. Join us as we navigate these sensitive topics with a focus on understanding and support of the human experience, in a new world where **robotics** and **robot** technology appear to manipulate our human emotions and decide our career potential and fate.

YouTube @TwoGuysAgainstAI

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:12

Welcome back. Hey, how do you see you? I'm at that as well. And here we go. We're gonna go back to the job front a little bit, but this time we're not gonna talk about AI replacing humans as much as AI now rejecting humans. So we got an article here from the BBC. So this is happening to a young British girl, uh Bavana Chiklukuri. So I butchered that name, uh, which I use. Nice job. I butcher names as a teacher. I always apologize before every class, but here we go. Computer says no. Are AI interviews making it harder to get a job? So just to give us a quick context, a lot of the young people out there, and and heaven forbid this happened to me, you do your, you put in your application, and some of these people are putting 200 and some applications in. You go up to a computer screen now and you answer AI questions. Now I've heard about this from some people in the United States too. One of uh my vice presidents at the college told me her son is going through this, and it's like, it's uh like one of the most demoralizing things that can happen to you because you sit there, you talk up to a computer screen, and then uh you the AI decides whether you move on in the process or not. It's not another human being. And you know, the the one I know about in the United States is going for sales jobs. How the hell does an AI like a sales thing is like you want to talk about the most social job there is, the kind of human-to-human contact, and the AI's deciding whether you're gonna you're gonna get that that that chance or not, whether you're even gonna just get to step two.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

Exactly. Well, I you know, uh, and and I was equally disturbed by this. My wife was a HR director, so it uh anytime these come up, I bring it up and she just shakes her head. But and we actually talked about this with um in an earlier segment about the creation of the resumes, you know, and you used to be able to buy canned resumes and and whether or not it's ethical to do that. And and then ultimately, I believe we concluded that AI was even rejecting particularly good resumes because they were too good to have them done by the human. So then, therefore, so you know, if you were even good at it, you were excluded. I I think what's most disturbing about this, and and on a lot of levels, and and we've touched this is almost kind of like a summary um uh uh episode, is that those entry jobs for the most part can be done by AI. And I I we've actually had some situations where we're we're starting to look, well, what are job impact percentages based upon you know different categories? So the first thing is that all of our new graduates coming out are actually being trained to do something that AI can already do, so you're in competition with it directly, and then now because there are so many people now looking for a job, you've got thousands and thousands of applications. HR departments generally are understaffed, yeah. About two or three people. So what they do is they sit there and you know, and we're gonna do a bunch of qualifications. And I suppose this is I and I don't know, maybe it already is happening. Are they actually talking to a chat bot with a video? Yeah, that's exactly what they're doing. And and so this thing is sitting there talking to them back and do you know how hard that is?

SPEAKER_00 3:26

So, like when I became college president, there was a thing they used to have this stuff called videotape, and you had to set up your videotape camera, right? And because they didn't want to pay for you to have to go across the country, and they would send you 10 questions, I'd tape it in front of there with a big print, and then I would read the question and then like I'm not an actor, you know what I mean? Like I wasn't I wasn't trained to do that, I can't really read a script. These were horrific. I cannot even imagine doing this digitally with a machine of value, of all things now. How could that possibly know if I'm a good employer?

SPEAKER_02 4:02

And let's let's take this one further. I mean, like we've talked about, you know, the romance with the machines from one side, but let's let's talk about we're we're talking about a vision of an individual, which is basically speaking to you, I guess if it's that sophisticated, that's virtually adversarial when it comes right down to it, because this is gonna be the one who's gonna sit there and decide whether or not you're gonna go to step two. But you know, I'm gonna blame lawyers for part of this.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Because guess what? There's a surprise. No, no, guess what's really great about this? You can't sue me for rejecting you for some classification. Because I had nothing to do with it. It was AI. And that's one of the reasons I use Merlin, by the way. When somebody sues and the lawyer gets me in a deposition and goes, What did you mean here? I'm going, I don't mean anything. A machine wrote it for me. I've literally my way up. Because you can't trust people anymore. So we brought some of this on ourselves, but the damn lawyers are involved. Trust me, this is about lawyers in the end. Well, I know that's why companies are doing this.

SPEAKER_02 5:02

There's there's probably even a logistical issue involved here. You want to go there, but I'm gonna go with the logistics. I know, and I'm I'm the uh you always call me the apologist. But but you know, when you apologize for lawyers, please. I didn't. I didn't. I can take the AI when when uh I first of all, I think probably one of the most humbling experiences has to be um that you're looking for a job. Because first of all, let's face it, you're looking for a job because you gotta do something. It's like you need money.

SPEAKER_00 5:35

All right, let's let's go through our process for a second, just before because I think you're on to something. I just want to put this in there before you get it, before you you say what you're gonna say. When you and I applied for a job, right? All right, I had to do the videos, but most of the time before before going for something where they had to fly me across the country and they they didn't know whether they wanted to make that investment or not, we went into somebody's office, there was a firm handshake, eye-to-eye contact, which I was always horrible at. Um, and there was a your your demeanor, there were a lot of things people looked at. All right, some of it flawed, some of it not flawed. But here was what was good about it. You left the interview, sometimes you had a good feeling, sometimes you didn't. There was a there was an emotional aspect to it, always because of what it is, but it took a couple weeks to get your answer. And you might, especially when you were just starting out, you're trying to get a job for the first time, maybe. Maybe you had like six or seven of these babies lined up, and you got a little bit better in each one, and you get your confidence grew, and you're like, all right, well, I blew that first one because I wasn't ready for those kind of questions, or some goofball asked you some stupid question, like what kind of animal you are, like that meant anything, right? We talk about a lazy ass question. Um, not that I have an opinion about those kind of questions. No, no, no. But here's here's what I would say: you could build your confidence, or you had a couple days to go through where you're like, you got your confidence back, and eventually you got a job. Now, two minutes later, you get your rejection. Maybe you got eight of these things lined up in a day. By the end of the day, mix for bed. I don't know how you recover from that.

SPEAKER_02 7:11

But let's let's even go one step further. When we when you have a human interview, I can get done and I can say to myself, all right, either A, the guy and I had nothing in common. Okay, fine. Wasn't a good fit. Or, or I didn't I didn't do well myself. So let's let's actually bring this down to an and this is what the future looks like, folks. And it is gonna determine whether or not you made a good impression. It has no feelings, it's a totally analytical process. Uh I don't know whether it does or doesn't look at your appearance at all and try to determine something from that. Who even knows what the criteria are because that would be grounds for lawsuit. So you're going up before a screen and you're trying to impress the machine to give you a chance to talk to the human, and you still might get bounced out by the human, but like you say, two minutes later, you're unacceptable. Reject it. Um adolescents or young adults, their their egos are fragile to a degree, and they're being judged by a machine based upon a bunch of arbitrary things that have really nothing to do with your ability to convey yourself. Because I mean, and they pick up, I mean, LLM is pretty good in terms of picking up cadences and things like that, but nonetheless, that decision is devastating. You're absolutely right. Well, and let's take it another step.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

All right, so remember where they used to have those coaches, like you you probably didn't pay for one. I I I got I didn't pay for it, but I I they they would we used to find jobs in something called the Wan Ads kits. So what would this was is you go to your newspaper. This used to be this paper that came out, and usually Sunday had uh or Saturday had the want ads, depending on what city you lived in, and you went through. There'd be these little ads that would be like um uh you know, they would it would be yeah, but but there would be some in there where you'd get to the interview, and it was really a sales pitch by a company that'd be like, we'll fix your resume. That may not may or may not have happened to you. Um, yeah, it was it was bait, yes. Yeah, there was bait uh bait things in there that kind of got you, and and then it'd be like, all right, for a thousand bucks we'll we guarantee we'll get you a job, God knows what that job would have been. I'd have a thousand bucks to give them, but I I remember this. So thinking that way, this has got to be an uh the absurdity of an arms ray arms race here in job getting because if I'm out there and I know how to program this, why don't I create a company for the interviewees now to put an AI in front of the other AI? We already know they're doing that with the resumes. Well, and and I think that's and then what then the people are just gone.

SPEAKER_02 10:07

Well, there you go, at least at least for the most part, and then it's gonna just be decided by you know iRobot in terms of who's I just I I'll I'll just uh bring things into perspective because when I I did my first job interview, and uh I was as a press photographer, and uh hang on folks, starting pay 175 an hour. Righteous box, you know, and uh but uh you went in and you're sitting there and you you know you're being judged, but at least you're being judged by the person who's you know gonna decide whether or not they're gonna carry the ball for you or not. These AI interviewers they they have no skin in the game whatsoever. I mean, even if they come up, if they come up with a good or a bad applicant, it doesn't matter. Actually, nothing matters, and it's just looking for something, and we may not even necessarily know what it is. No wonder they're depressed.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Well, I mean, again, so when I try to hire someone, and and and and I'm the first guy to admit I I I'm I'm the last person you'll see at our organization, and frankly, the decision will be made by the time it gets to me anyway, because it's not my skill set. It really isn't. But my hope is that the the people who have done the interviews for the organization have put an emphasis on productivity. Like, like I want some I want people who are gonna be productive, right? Decent, ethical. Like I'm looking for like here's kind of what I always tell people I can teach anyone how to do education, but I can't teach you how to be a good person. I can't teach you how to be a quality person individual, I can't teach you a work ethic. That's those intangibles are so vitally important to the outcomes of any good business, right? Those are what we really need. Well, I can teach any skill to anyone, that's what I do for a living, but I can't teach the fundamentals. How does AI get to the fundamentals? Well, let me ask you this do you use spider sense? Well, mine is bad. So no. I hope the people.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

But you know, I I I was I sold I believe I sold cars for the other.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

We had we had a board member named Craig Dana we both we both served with, and he once said it this way about about, and he was a he was an attorney, he was a good attorney, by the way. I'm gonna say something nice about an attorney. Craig was good, uh, but he had done a lot of education, and and and someone once asked, Well, why do we why do these guys always why why do they let people get this far before taking any kind of disciplinary action or something like this? And Craig would be like, Don't you understand? All teachers are kindergarten teachers in the end. We try to look for the best. Well, I'm the worst. Like, I'm the worst kindergarten teacher. So no, I should not hire anybody if you want to. And I told you were on my board, you were my boss. I said that out loud. I'm like, this is I'm just so bad at this.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

You know, but let's go, let's go back to this because we didn't even get a chance to find out that you were bad yet, because this process that we're looking at, and and it's it, you know what it is? It is it's already dehumanization. Yeah, it's terrible. It is, and and you know, you you're how how does a young person get past the digital wall? That that has already so we're looking at the current generation new starters who are looking and having to deal with this process. Their first lesson is how do I convince the AI entity that I'm the one? Do you realize what a change that is? Well, how is that good?

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Like, all right, so I'm gonna go back to me being a kindergarten. So I recognized pretty early on that like I shouldn't be the picker of the person, right? But sometimes they're like, well, you gotta interview three, and then I would get the group, whoever to interview, you know, in the higher ed they have search committees, so it's like I'd get to six people in, I'd be like, all right, give me, give what do you guys think? Because I want them, because I know my talent isn't there, but here's what I did develop the talent to do. Even if I knew who they probably picked, it was, and I thought the person was a good fit, it was selling them on the value of working for our organization and and and empowering them and motivating them to want to do a good job. And then if I even if I knew the other two, if I was interviewing three, were probably not gonna uh there's so few in it people and trying to work in this industry now, it's uh you know, I'm lucky I get one half the time. But I would be like, I would build that person, even if I knew they were gonna get the rejection letter, I wanted them to leave knowing, all right, this you might not be the right fit for this particular organization, but you you got a value and you're gonna be a good fit for somebody else. And I wanted them to leave with that that that positive feeling. How would you get that in this scenario?

SPEAKER_02 14:57

Well, you know, I'm gonna actually even go one step further because in in today's world, and I and I came from the day when like you got a score in percentages, or or you got an A or a B or a C. And if you got an award, it was because you did something, not because you participated. So the first problem that we have is nobody wants to say to anybody that they're not qualified because it's just like, and you know what? It's a crappy thing to have to do.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

But I'll but I'll but I'll also say it was very valuable to me. It's like I'm happy, like I've been on the receiving end of that, where someone said, You're you this isn't, you're not, you're not ready for this. Here's what you need to do. Right. Now I didn't get upset and go home and cry. I didn't call my mom. Right. I went out and did those things, so when I went back for an interview, I could get that job.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

I bet you the AI doesn't do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Like, there's no way, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:47

You know, the AI's gonna ask you a series of questions, whatever the case may be, and it's can't. There's not gonna be any any keep it up there. I mean, and even so, even if it if it did have a pep talk at the end, how insincere in the panic when it comes right down to it. I mean, it's like, you know, good luck, and you know, I know you're gonna do for me. Worse than a union president telling you. Oh jees, you know, and this is this is what what our youth has to deal with today. And you know, we've said this before. I'm glad I'm ready to kick the bucket.

SPEAKER_00 16:24

You know, I hope my folly, you die. Well, I'm gonna probably die before you you took better care of yourself, but my gosh, I'm not really gonna miss this, I don't think. I'll miss my kids, I'll miss my wife, but honestly, this just doesn't look promising in so many ways. And I don't even know. And I'm gonna be taken care of. Let's say this is for like a nursing. I who's gonna say now I was always worried who would take care of me in the end. It's gonna be somebody who's gonna get through the AI system.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Wow. Oh, you know, and and maybe maybe this is one of the areas where we start to say, maybe sometimes some things are not appropriate. Use of AI. I don't know. I mean, we're what we're think of the we talk about how how a romantic AI can destroy a person psychologically. What about that? We're talking about rejection on the most basis level. You couldn't even impress the person.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

Of the people who are supposed to be our future leaders of our society, are I mean, how in what are they gonna be like?

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Well, and and moving forward, we're this is the first you want to talk about a process of conditioning. The first first thing you have to do, remember, moving forward in your career is that you must satisfy the AI entity first. So agency again, we have surrendered, we have surrendered that human agency and delegated it to a machine. And why? Because it's easier.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

So we're gonna take a bunch of kids we gave participation trophies to, yes, who we have developed safe spaces for, they couldn't even hear like something that upset them.

SPEAKER_03 18:10

And we're gonna put them in front of an AI and tell them we're sorry, you're rejected.

SPEAKER_00 18:16

You know what? If I was a young person and I was put through that education system followed by this reality, I think I would be the most bitter human being that possible by the time I was said and done. Unless I was one of the lucky ones at it. And they're doing like 200 interviews, so or five, one of them was like 500. Yeah, 499 rejections! Like, like, well, hold on, guys. Why are you interviewing 500 people? You know what this reminds me of?

SPEAKER_02 18:46

The Grapes of Wrath. I know which way. Remember, they sent the bills out, posted the bills, pick peaches in California, but they did thousands of them. Yeah, and all these people came and showed up, and they just got pushed down to where they were worth less and less. And how history is repeating itself here, that was technology in its early phase with a printing press being able to hand out handbills saying that there were jobs in California, and all the oakies out of the dust bowl went west to find the jobs to find out that there were 20 sets of hands for any one job.

SPEAKER_00 19:28

None, and then let's do on top of that. Once we're done promising you everything in a college that is unrealistically goofy and expensive, put you in debt, then we put you through this, and then some jockass probably promises you a $30 minimum wage that you that's gonna make everybody innovate or automate even faster. How can this younger generation not be anything but pissed off?

SPEAKER_02 19:58

Well, and sadly, you know, we keep watching the rhetoric wins time and time again. If you end up to where a burger flipper is gonna cost $30 an hour to an employer, they're gonna buy the machine even if it costs. I mean, this may actually be the automation process in industry, maybe the ones who actually put these people in because what it actually does is make labor so expensive, they have to automate.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

But then what do you do with the people now who are unemployed? You're gonna have to live in a box in some Potterville playing video games, smoking pot, right? That has to be the only thing they have. And you'll get your check in order to survive. And while we show you videos of influencers on yachts and private jets to really make you angry, instead of from day one going, you know what, life is hard. You're gonna have to work hard if you want to get ahead. You know, that model worked. Um it brought us things like freedom. It brought us things like what they now call democracy, a republic where you could advance yourself. It brought us decency in the end. It brought us invention, innovation, invention. It brought us everything good, and it brought us, I'm gonna argue, out of slavery.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

So let me ask ask you this the machine doesn't care. But here's here's something I want to leave everybody with as we start to wrap this up. We have discussed in earlier segments the amount of massive invention or investment that's taking place creating AI and all of the systems to support it, the power sources, all of the resources that are being used to what may ultimately be nothing more than a centralization of power and a dehumanization of the general population. Are we actually using all that investment potential to its Best possible use. If we were to take this amount of money and invest it in jobs that would be able to support people, maybe, maybe we would not be able to sit and have a long chat with a machine that would dazzle us. But more people would have a job. We would not have had a kiosk when I walk into a burger joint to order because that's cheaper than the person who used to sit there and take the order. We would have had people having gainful employment who would have had the opportunity to support their family and dignity to do what they're doing. This allocation, we we discussed a wealth fund being created, sovereign wealth funds being used to create new AI and computer-based conglomerates. Unbelievable amounts of money that, if was dedicated towards efficient ways to put people to work, would keep a standard of living and dignity for humans. And it's maybe time to start asking these questions instead of giving a blank check for them to do more and more to eliminate the reality of humans having self-respect in the future.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Thank God you've come back to be one of the two guys against AI. We'll see you in the next video. Great to see you. Please subscribe and like us.

SPEAKER_03 23:27

Or hate us, but hit the like button anyway.