Trustworthy AI adoption is not just a technical challenge, it’s a deeply human one. In a world where AI increasingly interfaces with workplace operations, particularly in Human Resources (HR), it is crucial for this technology to align with civil rights in place to advance societal trust.
The Centre for Trustworthy Technology will be publishing three reports on this topic this week to delve into the evolving potential of AI and the HR industry.
In conversation:
This episode of Trustworthy Tech Dialogues hears from former Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Keith Sonderling. Commissioner Sonderling was confirmed by the US Senate with a bipartisan vote to be a Commissioner on the U.S. EEOC in 2020. Since then, he has led a proactive approach to the agency to respond to the timely issues of the American workforce.
In his term, he witnessed how artificial intelligence was reshaping the HR landscape, offering tools that streamline recruitment, reduce unconscious bias, and enabling data-driven decision-making. However, alongside these advancements come crucial ethical questions. How do we design AI that upholds longstanding civil rights laws and fosters equity in the workplace? In the United States, this is a topic, and an agency, that affects everyone.
The Unique Role of the EEOC
Commissioner Sonderling introduces the powerful intersection of AI and HR through introducing the wide-reaching impact of the EEOC. Congress established the EEOC to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which grants civil rights protections in the workforce. As Commissioner Sonderling explains, the United States was one of the first to establish these protections and served as a global model for employment laws and civil rights protections for workers in the workplace.
“So as the global leader, when it comes to these important issues, we really can set the pace for not only the compliance side, but also the enforcement side, because at our core, this is a civil law enforcement agency.”
Commissioner Sonderling reflects on how the agency shifts priorities with the issues affecting the American people. He recounts the complains of age discrimination after the recession in 2008, complaints of sexual harassment during the #MeToo Movement, and workplace accommodations during COVID-19 pandemic.
“So, when I got here in 2020, I said, how do we start thinking about, proactively, what is the biggest issue for the workforce going to be? And how do we tackle that?”
A Proactive Approach to AI in HR
Commissioner Sonderling’s proactive approach to regulation starts with a multi-stakeholder collaboration. It was in early discussion with corporate leaders and stakeholders from the employee and employer side, that he was made aware of the coming impact of AI in the workplace. “Then I realized how artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, all these buzzwords I had to learn, were already being vastly used within the HR function, not to displace the workers, but to actually perform HR functions that HR managers have been doing in their entire career.”
Engaging in Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue
The EEOC has always prioritized multi-stakeholder engagement in protecting workplace rights through dialogues with primary stakeholders like employee groups, employers, unions, and staffing agencies. In tackling the frontier of AI in the workplace, the agency has further expanded this model to include AI-relevant stakeholders like venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, technology vendors, and the companies deploying the technologies. Commissioner Sonderling acknowledges that these perspectives are all coming from very different directions, and together we need to reach an explainable consensus on how AI tools can be EEOC compliant and safe for users. He explained that the EEOC’s engagement with various stakeholders, including corporate leaders, community groups, and technology developers, has been pivotal in understanding the diverse perspectives on AI’s impact.
The Compliance Response: Federal Governance and State Patchwork
Commissioner Sonderling notes that the HR space is one of the more active ones when it comes to AI regulation. Various states in the United States have passed new legislation or proposals regarding facial recognition in interviews and Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT). Compliance with these laws does not necessarily ensure compliance with the EEOC.
“So, it all comes back to that as progressive as some of these new laws are, the basic standards of how you actually get there [to an employment decision], are based on us and are not going to change.”
Tackling the nuances of AI in the workplace requires a willingness to engage with technical topics, multi-stakeholder perspectives, and a balanced approach to use. Government regulatory agencies have an important role to play in preventing violations of the law. For the EEOC, their aim is compliance with workplace civil rights law regardless of the use of AI in the cases brought to them. “Because, when I realized early on, it’s no longer a question, especially for large organizations are going to use AI in HR that’s when we had to flip the narrative to, like I said earlier, how are you going to use it? What purpose are you going to use it for?”
Trust in AI in the Workplace
Evaluating trust in AI-enabled decision-making in the workplace is founded by the existent levels of trust in human-made employment decisions. Commissioner Sonderling refers to a Pew Research Center study on AI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers, to illustrate this point. Many people do not trust employment decisions made by humans, and bring these claims of bias to the EEOC. On the other hand, many Americans do not know that AI technology exists in the workforce. Evaluating their trust in automated decision-making vs human-decision making is a question of trust in the process of each decision. Leading with trust, ethics, and legal compliance can foster a trustworthy technology-enabled future of HR.
The intersection of AI and HR offers transformative potential, but it also raises critical challenges around civil rights and fairness. As Keith Sonderling emphasized, the EEOC’s proactive and collaborative approach is essential to ensuring that AI-driven tools align with long-established principles of workplace equity. By fostering dialogue among diverse stakeholders—employers, employees, tech developers, and regulators—the path forward can be shaped to protect civil rights while embracing innovation. Building trust in AI requires more than just technical solutions; it demands a commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance, ensuring a future where technology enhances, rather than compromises, fairness in the workplace.
Trustworthy AI adoption is not just a technical challenge, it’s a deeply human one. In a world where AI increasingly interfaces with workplace operations, particularly in Human Resources (HR), it is crucial for this technology to align with civil rights in place to advance societal trust.
The Centre for Trustworthy Technology will be publishing three reports on this topic this week to delve into the evolving potential of AI and the HR industry.
In conversation:
This episode of Trustworthy Tech Dialogues hears from former Commissioner of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), Keith Sonderling. Commissioner Sonderling was confirmed by the US Senate with a bipartisan vote to be a Commissioner on the U.S. EEOC in 2020. Since then, he has led a proactive approach to the agency to respond to the timely issues of the American workforce.
In his term, he witnessed how artificial intelligence was reshaping the HR landscape, offering tools that streamline recruitment, reduce unconscious bias, and enabling data-driven decision-making. However, alongside these advancements come crucial ethical questions. How do we design AI that upholds longstanding civil rights laws and fosters equity in the workplace? In the United States, this is a topic, and an agency, that affects everyone.
The Unique Role of the EEOC
Commissioner Sonderling introduces the powerful intersection of AI and HR through introducing the wide-reaching impact of the EEOC. Congress established the EEOC to enforce Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which grants civil rights protections in the workforce. As Commissioner Sonderling explains, the United States was one of the first to establish these protections and served as a global model for employment laws and civil rights protections for workers in the workplace.
“So as the global leader, when it comes to these important issues, we really can set the pace for not only the compliance side, but also the enforcement side, because at our core, this is a civil law enforcement agency.”
Commissioner Sonderling reflects on how the agency shifts priorities with the issues affecting the American people. He recounts the complains of age discrimination after the recession in 2008, complaints of sexual harassment during the #MeToo Movement, and workplace accommodations during COVID-19 pandemic.
“So, when I got here in 2020, I said, how do we start thinking about, proactively, what is the biggest issue for the workforce going to be? And how do we tackle that?”
A Proactive Approach to AI in HR
Commissioner Sonderling’s proactive approach to regulation starts with a multi-stakeholder collaboration. It was in early discussion with corporate leaders and stakeholders from the employee and employer side, that he was made aware of the coming impact of AI in the workplace. “Then I realized how artificial intelligence, machine learning, natural language processing, all these buzzwords I had to learn, were already being vastly used within the HR function, not to displace the workers, but to actually perform HR functions that HR managers have been doing in their entire career.”
Engaging in Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue
The EEOC has always prioritized multi-stakeholder engagement in protecting workplace rights through dialogues with primary stakeholders like employee groups, employers, unions, and staffing agencies. In tackling the frontier of AI in the workplace, the agency has further expanded this model to include AI-relevant stakeholders like venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, technology vendors, and the companies deploying the technologies. Commissioner Sonderling acknowledges that these perspectives are all coming from very different directions, and together we need to reach an explainable consensus on how AI tools can be EEOC compliant and safe for users. He explained that the EEOC’s engagement with various stakeholders, including corporate leaders, community groups, and technology developers, has been pivotal in understanding the diverse perspectives on AI’s impact.
The Compliance Response: Federal Governance and State Patchwork
Commissioner Sonderling notes that the HR space is one of the more active ones when it comes to AI regulation. Various states in the United States have passed new legislation or proposals regarding facial recognition in interviews and Automated Employment Decision Tools (AEDT). Compliance with these laws does not necessarily ensure compliance with the EEOC.
“So, it all comes back to that as progressive as some of these new laws are, the basic standards of how you actually get there [to an employment decision], are based on us and are not going to change.”
Tackling the nuances of AI in the workplace requires a willingness to engage with technical topics, multi-stakeholder perspectives, and a balanced approach to use. Government regulatory agencies have an important role to play in preventing violations of the law. For the EEOC, their aim is compliance with workplace civil rights law regardless of the use of AI in the cases brought to them. “Because, when I realized early on, it’s no longer a question, especially for large organizations are going to use AI in HR that’s when we had to flip the narrative to, like I said earlier, how are you going to use it? What purpose are you going to use it for?”
Trust in AI in the Workplace
Evaluating trust in AI-enabled decision-making in the workplace is founded by the existent levels of trust in human-made employment decisions. Commissioner Sonderling refers to a Pew Research Center study on AI in Hiring and Evaluating Workers, to illustrate this point. Many people do not trust employment decisions made by humans, and bring these claims of bias to the EEOC. On the other hand, many Americans do not know that AI technology exists in the workforce. Evaluating their trust in automated decision-making vs human-decision making is a question of trust in the process of each decision. Leading with trust, ethics, and legal compliance can foster a trustworthy technology-enabled future of HR.
The intersection of AI and HR offers transformative potential, but it also raises critical challenges around civil rights and fairness. As Keith Sonderling emphasized, the EEOC’s proactive and collaborative approach is essential to ensuring that AI-driven tools align with long-established principles of workplace equity. By fostering dialogue among diverse stakeholders—employers, employees, tech developers, and regulators—the path forward can be shaped to protect civil rights while embracing innovation. Building trust in AI requires more than just technical solutions; it demands a commitment to ethics, transparency, and compliance, ensuring a future where technology enhances, rather than compromises, fairness in the workplace.
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