Several companies are now using language-and-image-processing tech to spot what we humans can’t—or won’t.
California recently enacted a strict gender-equality law, the Fair Pay Act, which puts the burden of proof on a company to show that it has not shortchanged an employee’s salary based on gender. It’s a powerful tool to address a wrong that has already happened. But can discrimination be prevented in the first place? Even managers who don’t think they are biased may be—and just their word choices can send a signal. A new wave of artificial intelligence companies aims to spot nuanced biases in workplace language and behavior in order to root them out.