Navigating Employment Discrimination in AI and Automated Systems: A New Civil Rights Frontier

The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) held a public hearing to examine the use of automated systems, including artificial intelligence (AI), in employment decisions. Increasingly, employers are using automated systems to make employment decisions, including the recruitment, hiring, monitoring, and firing of workers. During the hearing, the Commission heard from witnesses ranging from computer scientists, civil rights advocates, legal experts, industrial-organizational psychologist, and employer representatives. This hearing continues the work of the EEOC’s AI and Algorithmic Fairness Initiative, an agency-wide initiative to ensure that the use of software, including AI and other emerging technologies used in hiring and other employment decisions, comply with the federal civil rights laws that the EEOC enforces.