Investigating the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the world of work, Hilke Schellmann thought she had better try some of the tools. Among them was a one-way video interview system intended to aid recruitment called myInterview. She got a login from the company and began to experiment – first picking the questions she, as the hiring manager, would ask and then video recording her answers as a candidate before the proprietary software analysed the words she used and the intonation of her voice to score how well she fitted the job.

She was pleased to score an 83% match for the role. But when she re-did her interview not in English but in her native German, she was surprised to find that instead of an error message she also scored decently (73%) – and this time she hadn’t even attempted to answer the questions but read a Wikipedia entry. The transcript the tool had concocted out of her German was gibberish. When the company told her its tool knew she wasn’t speaking English so had scored her primarily on her intonation, she got a robot voice generator to read in her English answers. Again she scored well (79%), leaving Schellmann scratching her head.

“If simple tests can show these tools may not work, we really need to be thinking long and hard about whether we should be using them for hiring,” says Schellmann, an assistant professor of journalism at New York University and investigative reporter.

The experiment, conducted in 2021, is detailed in Schellmann’s new book, The Algorithm. It explores how AI and complex algorithms are increasingly being used to help hire employees and then subsequently monitor and evaluate them, including for firing and promotion. Schellmann, who has previously reported for the Guardian on the topic, not only experiments with the tools, but speaks to experts who have investigated them – and those on the receiving end.