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Ep. 17 – Is My Boss Using AI to Spy on Me?
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Hilke Schellmann never saw herself as a tech reporter. As a journalism professor at NYU who has covered subjects like sexual violence in Pakistan, Hilke first got interested in AI during a chance encounter with a Lyft driver who told her he had recently had an online job interview with a robot. That moment set her off on a years-long investigation to uncover how major American companies use AI to recruit and spy on their workers, which she documents in her new book The Algorithm. In this week’s episode, host Peter Bittner talks with Hilke about how employers are secretly using AI at work and what we can do to fight back.
(Show Notes)
(1:07) How Hilke first stumbled upon the story of AI’s use in the labor industry
(2:36) Why your job application is likely being read by AI
(3:21) The robot job interview
(4:00) The ways employers use surveillance to track their workers
(5:32) AI tools used in job applications can often be discriminatory
(8:42) The unfairness of AI games that some companies use to review applicants
(9:53) The limitations regulatory agencies have with enforcing and cracking down on malicious ways AI is used by employers
(13:02) Hilke explains different ways employers can track a worker’s productivity online
(16:34) Drivers are under particular threat from AI surveillance
(18:02) How companies that design AI-powered job interview tools market their product to companies
(19:36) Hacks workers use to get around tools that spy on them
(22:29) Germany has institute policy to protect workers from online surveillance
(25:09) Employers are also finding super creepy ways to monitor the health of their employees, even by tracking women’s periods
Where to find Hilke:
- Follow Hilke on LinkedIn
- Where to buy Hilke’s book The Algorithm
- Learn more about Hilke
Learn more about The Upgrade and our online courses
Connect on LinkedIn with Peter Bittner, The Upgrade’s founder and CEO
Special thanks to Mitch Walker for helping to design the podcast’s artwork
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