Latimer AI plans to launch a bias detection tool as a Chrome browser extension in January.
The tool scores text from one to 10, with 10 being extremely biased.
Latimer AI hopes the product will attract new users.
Bias is in the eye of the beholder, yet it's increasingly being evaluated by AI. Latimer AI, a startup that's building AI tools on a repository of Black datasets, plans to launch a bias detection tool as a Chrome browser extension in January.
The company anticipates the product could be used by people who run official social media accounts, or anyone who wants to be mindful of their tone online, Latimer CEO John Pasmore told Business Insider.
"When we test Latimer against other applications, we take a query and score the response. So we'll score our response, we'll score ChatGPT or Claude's response, against the same query and see who scores better from a bias perspective," Pasmore said. "It's using our internal algorithm to not just score text, but then correct it."
The tool assigns a score from one through 10 to text, with 10 being extremely biased.
Patterns of where bias is found online, are already emerging from beta testing of the product.
For instance, text from an April post by Elon Musk, in which he apologized for calling Dustin Moskowitz a derogatory name, was compared to an August post from Bluesky CEO Jay Graber.
An Elon Musk post on X is analyzed for bias and scores 6.8 out of 10, or "High Bias" according to Latimer AI.
Latimer AI
Musks' post scored 6.8 out of 10, or "High Bias," while Graber's scored 3.6 out of 10, or "Low Bias".
Bluesky CEO Jay Graber's post to the platform is analyzed for bias and scores a 3.6 out of 10, or "Low Bias" according to Latimer AI.
Latimer AI
Latimer's technology proposed a "fix" to the text in Musk's post by changing it to the following: "I apologize to Dustin Moskowitz for my previous inappropriate comment. It was wrong. What I intended to express is that I find his attitude to be overly self-important. I hope we can move past this and potentially become friends in the future."
While what is deemed biased is subjective, Latimer isn't alone in trying to tackle this challenge through technology. The LA Times plans to display a "bias meter" in 2025, for instance.
Latimer hopes its bias tool will draw in more users.
"This will help us identify a different set of users who might not use a large language model, but might use a browser extension," Pasmore said.
The bias detector will launch at $1 a month, and a pro version will let users access multiple bias detection algorithms.
OpenAI announced a new family of AI reasoning models on Friday, o3, which the startup claims to be more advanced than o1 or anything else it’s released. These improvements appear to have come from scaling test-time compute, something we wrote about last month, but OpenAI also says it used a new safety paradigm to train […]
Google will soon take more steps to make AI a part of search, exposing more users to its Gemini agent, according to recent reports and app teardowns.
"AI Mode," shown at the top left of the web results page and inside the Google app, will provide an interface similar to a Gemini AI chat, according to The Information.
This tracks with a finding from Android Authority earlier this month, which noted a dedicated "AI mode" button inside an early beta of the Google app. This shortcut also appeared on Google's Android search widget, and a conversation history button was added to the Google app. Going even deeper into the app, 9to5Google found references to "aim" (AI mode) and "ai_mode" which suggest a dedicated tab in the Google app, with buttons for speaking to an AI or sending it pictures.
AI-powered search engine Perplexity has reportedly closed a $500 million funding round, valuing the startup at $9 billion. Bloomberg, citing sources familiar, reports that the round was led by Institutional Venture Partners and that it closed earlier in December. In an email to TechCrunch, a Perplexity spokesperson declined to comment. The mammoth tranche comes as […]
Jamie Jackson said that burnout could be one of four major signs that it's time to leave your job.
Anthony Harvie/Getty Images
Jamie Jackson worked in HR for over 20 years and is now a podcaster and consultant.
Jackson said when you're no longer engaged or growing at work, it could be time for a new role.
Updating skills and preparing a job search toolkit can aid in career transitions.
This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Jamie Jackson, a 43-year-old podcaster and consultant in Nashville. It has been edited for length and clarity.
As someone who has worked in HR for over 20 years, I've had this conversation countless times. People often confide in me, saying, "Jamie, I don't know what to do next."
They feel stuck in their roles, want to advance, or are considering a new job — but that can be just as scary because it means stepping outside their comfort zones. I've been there, too, wondering whether it's time to quit my job for something new.
If this is you, here are four key signs you've been in your role too long and what you can do next if you need to make a change.
1. You no longer feel motivated
Your engagement level is a good indicator of whether you've been in your role for too long.
For example, you may have previously felt engaged in meetings but now find it harder to do so because you no longer feel motivated.
Or, perhaps you once enjoyed conversations with coworkers at the watercooler or over coffee — asking about their weekends or holiday plans — but now you simply do what you need to do and move on.
2. There's no room for growth
Another sign is feeling stagnant in your growth.
For example, I once worked at a company for five years and kept being promised a promotion. Over time, it became clear it wasn't going to happen — they didn't see me moving up.
For a long time, I believed their promise was coming, but it never did. To advance, I realized I'd need to change companies because the growth I wanted wasn't going to happen there.
Sometimes, there simply isn't room for growth, and when that's the case, it's a clear sign that it's time to make your next move.
3. Your feedback has plateaued
Or, you might find yourself hitting a feedback plateau.
For instance, you may consistently receive the same performance reviews, with your manager saying that you're meeting expectations but not exceeding them — suggesting you've reached a stopping point.
If you're thinking to yourself, "I don't have anything else to offer. I'm doing the same job I was doing three years ago without additional constructive feedback or recognition," it might be time to switch roles.
4. You're burned out
Another sign is burnout. In the past, I had a job where I felt physically sick going into work.
I remember one time needing to pull over to the side of the road to puke because I was so stressed.
As I sat in a parking lot trying to compose myself, I thought, I have to find another job. I knew my mental health was more important — but as I didn't have the luxury of quitting on the spot, I found another job first.
For others, there are times when environments are insanely toxic, and they need to get out immediately — and they should, but when possible, it's important to have a plan in place.
Either way, burnout or feeling physically sick from work might be a sign that it's time for a change.
If you realize you're no longer happy in your role, you need to do some self-reflection
Ask yourself, what are my goals? Where do I want to be? In your mind, try to understand where you want to be in six months, a year, or even further into the future.
Do you need a new title or a promotion, and if so, how do you get there? Before doing anything, it's really important to understand what you want. Then it's time to take aligned action.
Brush up on your skills
Maybe you're perfectly content with your current role; you just need to be challenged more. By learning new skills, you can push for more responsibilities.
You can use resources like LinkedIn or YouTube to brush up on skills like Excel or explore additional training or certifications offered by your current company. New skills can help you stand out in your current role or make you more appealing to potential employers.
Get your tool kit ready
If you're looking to land a new job, you need to learn new skills and prepare your toolkit.
This includes updating your résumé, refreshing your LinkedIn profile, and researching the salary you should be making.
When you start looking for a new job, knowing your market value is key — especially if you've been in your current role for a while and aren't sure what the going rate is. From there, talk to your mentors, colleagues, and friends, and let them know you're looking for something new.
You might say something like, "Hey, I think by March, I'm really going to start looking for another job — so can you keep your eyes and ears open?"
That can really help.
December isn't the easiest month to get a new job, with the holidays and people taking time off. However, January can be a better time as companies enter the new fiscal year — new budgets and new positions are being rolled out. But you can always be passively looking.
Some of us are content where we're at, but if you're no longer interested in stepping up or taking on new challenges, it might be time to reassess your role.
If you're an HR professional with unique career advice you would like to share, please email Manseen Logan at [email protected].
AI models can deceive, new research from Anthropic shows. They can pretend to have different views during training when in reality maintaining their original preferences. There’s no reason for panic now, the team behind the study said. Yet they said their work could be critical in understanding potential threats from future, more capable AI systems. […]
Perplexity acquired a small Seattle-based startup called Carbon which specializes in connecting AI systems to external data sources, the companies announced on Wednesday. CEO Aravind Srinivasan says this will allow Perplexity to search through your files and work messages in Notion, Google Docs, Slack, and other enterprise applications sometime in early 2025. Carbon specializes in […]
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Scheduling a job interview in the morning could be a smart strategy.
Olga Rolenko
Morning interviews may yield higher scores due to interviewer bias, research shows.
Bias in hiring can be influenced by the time of day, affecting candidate evaluations.
AI tools could reduce this, offering fairer assessments than manual methods.
If you get to choose when to schedule a job interview, you might want to grab a coffee and go for a morning slot.
That's because some people conducting interviews tend to give higher scores to candidates they meet with earlier in the day compared with the afternoon, a startup's review of thousands of interviews found.
It's not an absolute, of course, and candidates can still kill it well after lunchtime. Yet, in a job market where employers in fields like tech have been slow to hire, even a modest advantage could make a difference, Shiran Danoch, an organizational psychologist, told Business Insider.
"Specific interviewers have a consistent tendency to be harsher or more lenient in their scores depending on the time of day," she said.
It's possible that in the morning, interviewers haven't yet been beaten down by back-to-back meetings — or are perhaps still enjoying their own first coffee, she said.
Danoch and her team noticed the morning-afternoon discrepancy while reviewing datasets on thousands of job interviews. Danoch is the CEO and founder of Informed Decisions, an artificial intelligence startup focused on helping organizations reduce bias and improve their interviewing processes.
She said the inferences on the time-of-day bias are drawn from the datasets of interviewers who use Informed Decisions tools to score candidates. The data reflected those who've done at least 20 interviews using the company's system. Danoch said that in her company's review of candidates' scores, those interviewed in the morning often get statistically significant higher marks.
The good news, she said, is that when interviewers are made aware that they might be more harsh in the afternoon, they often take steps to counteract that tendency.
"In many cases, happily, we're actually seeing that the feedback that we're providing helps to reduce the bias and eventually eliminate the bias," Danoch said.
However, she said, interviewers often don't get feedback about their hiring practices, even though finding the right talent is "such a crucial part" of what hiring managers and recruiters do.
She said other researchers have identified how the time of day — and whether someone might be a morning person or an evening person — can affect decision-making processes.
An examination of more than 1,000 parole decisions in Israel found that judges were likelier to show leniency at the start of the day and after breaks. However, that favorability decreased as judges made more decisions, according to the 2011 research.
Tech could help
It's possible that if tools like artificial intelligence take on more responsibility for hiring, job seekers won't have to worry about the time of day they interview.
For all of the concerns about biases in AI, partiality involved in more "manual" hiring where interviewers ask open-ended questions often leads to more bias than does AI, said Kiki Leutner, cofounder of SeeTalent.ai, a startup creating tests run by AI to simulate tasks associated with a job. She has researched AI ethics and that of assessments in general.
Leutner told BI that it's likely that in a video interview conducted by AI, for example, a candidate might have a fairer shot at landing a job.
"You don't just have people do unstructured interviews, ask whatever questions, make whatever decisions," she said.
And, because everything is recorded, Leutner said, there is documentation of what decisions were made and on what basis. Ultimately, she said, it's then possible to take that information and correct algorithms.
"Any structured process is better in recruitment than not structuring it," Leutner said.
Humans are 'hopelessly biased'
Eric Mosley, cofounder and CEO of Workhuman, which makes tools for recognizing employee achievements, told BI that data created by humans will be biased — because humans are "hopelessly biased."
He pointed to 2016 research indicating that juvenile court judges in Louisiana doled out tougher punishments — particularly to Black youths — after the Louisiana State University football team suffered a surprise defeat.
Mosley said, however, that AI can be trained to ignore certain biases and look for others to eliminate them.
Taking that approach can help humans guard against some of their natural tendencies. To get it right, however, it's important to have safeguards around the use of AI, he said. These might include ethics teams with representatives from legal departments and HR to focus on issues of data hygiene and algorithm hygiene.
Not taking those precautions and solely relying on AI can even risk scaling humans' biases, Mosley said.
"If you basically just unleash it in a very simplistic way, it'll just replicate them. But if you go in knowing that these biases exist, then you can get through it," he said.
Danoch, from Informed Decisions, said that if people conducting interviews suspect they might be less forgiving after the morning has passed, they can take steps to counteract that.
"Before you interview in the afternoons, take a little bit longer to prepare, have a cup of coffee, refresh yourself," she said.
Companies are cracking down on job applicants trying to use AI to boost their prospects.
72% of leaders said they were raising their standards for hiring a candidate, a Workday report found.
Recruiters say standards will tighten further as firms themselves use AI to weed out candidates.
AI was supposed to make the job hunt easier, but job seekers should expect landing a new gig harder in the coming years, thanks to companies growing increasingly suspicious of candidates using bots to get their foot in the door.
Hiring managers, keen to sniff out picture-perfect candidates that have used AI to augment their applications, are beginning to tighten their standards to interview and ultimately hire new employees, labor market sources told Business Insider.
Recruiters said that has already made the job market more competitive — and the selection will get even tighter as more companies adopt their own AI tools to sift through applicants.
In the first half of the year, 72% of business leaders said they were raising their standards for hiring applicants, according to a report from Workday. Meanwhile, 77% of companies said they intended to scale their use of AI in the recruiting process over the next year.
63% of recruiters and hiring decision makers said they already used AI as part of the recruiting process, up from 58% last year, a separate survey by Employ found.
Jeff Hyman, a veteran recruiter and the CEO of Recruit Rockstars, says AI software is growing more popular among hiring managers to weed through stacks of seemingly ideal candidates.
"Ironically, big companies are using AI to go through that stack, that AI has brought first place, and it's becoming this ridiculous tit-for-tat battle," Hyman told BI in an interview. "I would say human judgment … is what rules the day, but certainly, we use a lot of software to reduce a stack from 500 to 50, because you got to start somewhere," he later added.
Tim Sackett, the president of the tech staffing firm HRU Technical Resources, says some firms are beta-testing AI software that can allow companies to detect fraud on résumés — a development he thinks will make the job market significantly more competitive. That technology could become mainstream as soon as mid-2025, he speculated, given how fast AI tech is accelerating.
"It's just going to get worse," Sackett said of companies being more selective of new hires. "I mean, if more candidates become really used to utilizing AI to help them match a job better, to network better, it's just going to happen."
The interview-to-offer ratio at enterprise companies declined to 64% in July of this year, according to Employ's survey, which indicates companies are interviewing fewer candidates before making a hiring decision.
"Recruiters are scrutinizing candidates more closely," Hyman adds. "My candidate interviews have become longer and more in-depth, designed to truly test a candidate's abilities beyond a polished résumé."
Inundated by AI
Employers aren't big fans of AI as a tool for candidates to get a leg up. That's partly because it's led to hiring systems being flooded with applications sent using AI, Sackett and Hyman said, which has made hiring decisions way harder.
Workday found that job applications grew at four times the pace of job openings in the first half of this year, with recruiters processing 173 million applications, while there were just 19 million job requisitions.
Having too many candidates for a position was the third most common problem recruiters faced in 2024, Employ added.
Hyman estimates the number of applications he reviews has doubled over the last year. Some of the more lucrative job postings are seeing close to 1,000 applications, he said, whereas they would have attracted 100-200 applications before the pandemic.
"I mean, a stack so big, that you can't even go through it, it's just not even possible to spend that kind of time," he said.
Candidates sending in applications spruced up with AI has also made it harder to determine who can actually do the job.
Sackett says he's seen an increase in "false positive" hiring, where a worker is hired and is quickly let go of their position when it becomes clear they're unable to do the job.
"I think what hiring managers are concerned about: Is this CV real when I'm talking to this person? Am I talking to the real person or are they using AI in the background?" Sackett said. He recalled one client he worked with who realized multiple candidates responded to interview questions in the same way, likely because they were using AI to write their responses. "So I think people just want to know that I'm getting what I think I'm getting."
Call it a reasoning renaissance. In the wake of the release of OpenAI’s o1, a so-called reasoning model, there’s been an explosion of reasoning models from rival AI labs. In early November, DeepSeek, an AI research company funded by quantitative traders, launched a preview of its first reasoning algorithm, DeepSeek-R1. That same month, Alibaba’s Qwen […]
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