The Algorithm, Hilke Schellmann
The Algorithm, Hilke Schellmann
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The Algorithm
How AI Decides Who Gets Hired, Monitored, Promoted, and Fired and Why We Need to Fight Back Now

Author: Hilke Schellmann

Narrator: Hilke Schellmann

Unabridged: 10 hr 21 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 01/02/2024

Synopsis

Based on exclusive information from whistleblowers, internal documents, and real world test results, Emmy‑award winning Wall Street Journal contributor Hilke Schellmann delivers a shocking and illuminating expose on the next civil rights issue of our time: how AI has already taken over the workplace and shapes our future.
 
Hilke Schellmann, is an Emmy‑award winning investigative reporter, Wall Street Journal and Guardian contributor and Journalism Professor at NYU. In The Algorithm, she investigates the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of work. AI is now being used to decide who has access to an education, who gets hired, who gets fired, and who receives a promotion. Drawing on exclusive information from whistleblowers, internal documents and real‑world tests, Schellmann discovers that many of the algorithms making high‑stakes decisions are biased, racist, and do more harm than good. Algorithms are on the brink of dominating our lives and threaten our human future—if we don't fight back. 
 
Schellmann takes readers on a journalistic detective story testing algorithms that have secretly analyzed job candidates' facial expressions and tone of voice. She investigates algorithms that scan our online activity including Twitter and LinkedIn to construct personality profiles à la Cambridge Analytica. Her reporting reveals how employers track the location of their employees, the keystrokes they make, access everything on their screens and, during meetings, analyze group discussions to diagnose problems in a team. Even universities are now using predictive analytics for admission offers and financial aid.  
 

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jillian on April 15, 2024

When journalist Hilke Schellman set out to study AI tools’ impacts on the workplace, she was excited by the possibilities. What she found was much darker. This book gives scary examples of the ways AI is being used to determine who companies will hire, promote and even fire. It shares examples like a......more

Goodreads review by J on December 03, 2023

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for this eARC. This book is scarily accurate in its account of Human Resource departments' new dependence on using the fallible AI as a recruiting tool which 'identifies and targets' the perfect fit for a job. Unfortunately, rather than that pronouncement being......more

Goodreads review by Ben on March 13, 2024

Fight Back This is a great book on AI and the fundamental changes it is already making to society at large. As someone who uses AI and has written a few AI algorithms myself, I appreciate both sides of the arguments, and this book had a lot of really great points. Absolutely recommend checking this o......more

Goodreads review by Brian on May 14, 2024

The Algorithm was the most enlightening and eye-opening book that I have read in 2024. If you haven't been in a job search in the past two years, the game has changed dramatically and unfortunately the job searchers have no idea of the extent of the playbook. Ms. Schellman extensively researched vari......more

Goodreads review by Edwin Goh Wei Qian on March 09, 2024

This book paints the bleak reality faced by workers in the working world of increasing AI surveillance. Not only the growing adoption of invasive predictive algorithms does not fulfil its promise of boosted productivity. It has led to exacerbated discrimination at work and turns workplaces into a pe......more

Quotes

“In The Algorithm, Hilke Schellmann has done the impossible: she has rendered the baffling ‘Wild West’ of AI immensely readable and approachable.  Schellmann gives us the dark and hidden history of tech innovation and the marketplace through the stories of those whose lives have been smashed by its glitches.”—Eliza Griswold, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Amity and Prosperity

“Hilke Schellmann is writing on one of the most important topics of our time—one that impacts all of us more than we realize.  The book takes a balanced approach to illuminating the current state of AI in the workplace.  It’s not just about incredible benefits or doomsday scenarios, but a real look into the current state of these tools, the incentive systems driving their proliferation, the mixed results they provide, and how we might ensure better outcomes.  Highly recommended.”—Ryan Fuller, former vice president for workplace intelligence at Microsoft

“The Algorithm provides a fresh, important perspective on how AI is changing many critical workplace decisions in organizations.  Her research is thorough and clever, and exposes the many of problems that AI and its proponents have already created for companies and employees.”—David Futrell, Former Senior Director of Organization Performance at Walmart

“A disturbing investigation into use of AI systems in hiring, firing, and employee surveillance.  As Schellmann demonstrates, AI has moved into crucial areas of our lives, but the process has been so fast and silent that its influence is almost invisible.  She argues that HR managers should be required to understand how their algorithms work, and there must be greater human input to personnel decisions.  This eye-opening book makes it hard to disagree.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Hilke Schellmann was one of the first journalists to understand the dangers of AI passing judgement on workers, and The Algorithm is an absolutely vital book about the risks and harms of the systems already operating—on us—today.”—Clay Shirky, author of Cognitive Surplus and Here Comes Everybody

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