Original Broadcaster Captioning (Enhanced). Treat it as a searchable index of what was broadcast, not a quotation record.
00:00:00Minister Carney remains as popular popular as he has been and whether whether it pushes the Canadians back
00:00:02back to the table with the US., which which they say they are open for
00:00:06for negotiations, just ones that that are fair. And of course, the
00:00:08the other thing is the trade agreement agreement that's in existence there.
00:00:11there. The US Mexico-canada agreement. agreement. It's still in place for
00:00:14for the guts of another ten years, years, like the negotiations that
00:00:17that have fallen apart are about
00:00:20about renewing it beyond that term. term. So notwithstanding the impact
00:00:23impact of tariffs, a lot of the other
00:00:26other regulations are still in place place and a lot of the pain that's
00:00:29that's been experienced so far is
00:00:33is actually customer boycotts. I I mean, we saw that with the alcohol
00:00:36alcohol as well before there was
00:00:37was ever a mention of tariffs. Canadians
00:00:40Canadians just stopped buying and
00:00:43and the shops stopped stocking Californian Californian wine and Kentucky bourbon
00:00:46bourbon and all of those things. things. They sort of voted with their their feet. I think unfortunately
00:00:50unfortunately that's all the time time we have for now, even though though this is obviously a very meaty
00:00:54meaty topic. Indeed it is. And we we will be talking about it again.
00:00:58again. Absolutely sure. And convinced convinced of that? Well, great to
00:01:01to talk to you guys as always. Talk
00:01:04Talk soon. Bye-bye. And you can catch
00:01:14catch up with all of the episodes episodes of The President's Path
00:01:17Path on BBC iPlayer. If you're in in the UK. Or on YouTube. If you're
00:01:20you're anywhere else in the world. world. And if you want to get in
00:01:23in touch, please do. You can email
00:01:26email us at Pallab
00:02:28Gdansk. Join me, Julie Lyn, for discovering discovering the world's table Poland
00:02:32Poland on BBC News. With BBC News
00:02:38News I'm Lucy Grey. In a moment UK UK viewers will be taken to the Liberal
00:02:42Liberal Democrats conference in Brighton. Brighton. But for the moment we're
00:02:44we're going to talk about AI and
00:02:47and AI is making itself felt in many many different parts of our lives,
00:02:50lives, including looking for a job job or hiring someone for a job.
00:02:54job. Right now there's what's being being called an application explosion,
00:02:58explosion, which is creating challenges challenges for job seekers and employers.
00:03:00employers. Our analysis editor, Ros Ros Atkins has looked into the issue.
00:03:04issue. Looking for a job is hard, hard, but is AI making it harder?
00:03:08harder? Feels like I'm talking to to a robot. It feels really disheartening.
00:03:11disheartening. The survival of the the fittest now really. AI stands
00:03:14stands accused of ruining the job job market. Do you buy that? No,
00:03:18No, I don't. But has a doom loop loop been created where AI is used
00:03:22used to write more and more applications applications and where employers
00:03:26employers increasingly use AI to to sift through them? Two out three.
00:03:29three. Of our clients are really really struggling with the volume. volume. They can simply go click,
00:03:33click, click click. If you do get get through the AI shortlisting,
00:03:36shortlisting, guess who might be be doing the interview? Once I had
00:03:39had this AI tell me that I lacked
00:03:41lacked empathy. It's like you're you're speaking to a robot essentially,
00:03:45essentially, and I don't think that's. that's. What you are. Well, you are
00:03:48are exactly. Recruitment is being
00:03:50being rewired by technology, but
00:03:52but is it better either for the applicant applicant or for the employer? To
00:03:56To help understand the issues, I I wanted to hear from people in the
00:04:00the middle of this. Kate runs an
00:04:03an AI consultancy. Matt is a recruitment recruitment executive and Niamh Adi
00:04:07Adi and Santina are job hunting and
00:04:11and sending a lot of applications. applications. Over 200 now about
00:04:14about 50. It's been 100 so far. That's That's just in the last year. This
00:04:17This is part of an application explosion
00:04:20explosion which is happening for for several reasons. Competition
00:04:24Competition is fierce. The number number of vacancies is down. The
00:04:27The number of graduates is at a record
00:04:29record high and AI is helping to
00:04:31to write more and more applications.
00:04:34applications. 20 years ago, for graduate graduate vacancies, there were on
00:04:38on average 38 applications per job.
00:04:41job. Last year it was 140. Let's
00:04:43Let's look at this from both sides. sides. The employers and first the
00:04:47the job seekers. You're trying to to get a job at the moment you're you're finishing university. How
00:04:51How central is AI to doing that? that? It's really central. I use
00:04:55use it now for finding the jobs itself. itself. When I'm searching for jobs,
00:04:59jobs, I have my automated agent that that goes scrapes through the whole
00:05:02whole internet seeing which roles roles apply, opening which ones the
00:05:05the deadlines are, and it helps me me narrow the selection down. It's It's maybe putting keywords, see
00:05:09see which ones can make sound better. better. Even when I know I want to
00:05:12to portray a certain side of myself myself and what I want to say and
00:05:15and AI can help me sound better, better, maybe edit my CV. I would
00:05:19would make sure that it has the same same words that there are in the
00:05:23the job description. Adi Niamh and
00:05:26and Santina aren't alone. One survey
00:05:28survey found 73% of students and and graduates use AI at some stage
00:05:32stage during the application process. process. At Western is a senior executive
00:05:36executive at recruitment firm Robert
00:05:38Robert Half. It places over 100,000
00:05:41100,000 candidates a year globally. globally. It's hard. To find the
00:05:44the true skills of the individual. individual. I think with AI you can
00:05:48can put in a job spec, it can generate generate a CV. I'm trying to imagine
00:05:51imagine the scene in your office. office. Are you sometimes sitting sitting there just going, goodness,
00:05:54goodness, more and more and more more applications coming in all looking
00:05:57looking quite the same. They are
00:05:59are very samey and that's really,
00:06:02really, really hard to. That's the the art of what we do. The art is
00:06:05is just justifying or really going going through and seeing who is the
00:06:09the right candidate. A recent Ft Ft article explained why recruiting
00:06:13recruiting is going retro in the the age of AI, when every application
00:06:17application is polished. Polish tells tells you nothing. One HR executive
00:06:21executive says. In other words, even even if technology helps, human judgement
00:06:25judgement is still an essential part part of the process. At this point,
00:06:29point, it's important to be clear
00:06:30clear on something that the use of
00:06:33of technology to shortlist candidates candidates isn't necessarily seen
00:06:36seen as a bad thing. The Information Information Commissioner says these
00:06:39these tools can enable employers employers to process high volumes
00:06:42volumes of applications consistently consistently and quickly. Or listen
00:06:46listen to Kate Young. Her business business works with companies which
00:06:49which use AI recruitment tools. What
00:06:52What we do know is that humans making making decisions about who to hire
00:06:56hire is a deeply flawed process, process, and it always has been. been. I'm sure we can all remember.
00:06:59remember. Think of a time we were were rejected for a job. We didn't
00:07:02didn't have a firm handshake. We We didn't make eye contact or some
00:07:06some other spurious question. The The interviewer asked us that actually
00:07:08actually nothing to do with our capabilities.
00:07:10capabilities. Kate offers a useful useful reminder that humans haven't
00:07:14haven't always got it right. Generally, Generally, if the right guardrails
00:07:18guardrails are present, evaluate evaluate what it's been told to and
00:07:21and assuming those things are job job relevant criteria, there is the the possibility of better outcome
00:07:25outcome because all that error and and noise and bias can potentially potentially be screened out, but
00:07:28but only if it's built well. There's There's another concern. You might
00:07:32might think that applying to ten ten different companies gives you
00:07:35you ten chances, not necessarily. necessarily. If different employers
00:07:39employers are using the same or very
00:07:41very similar algorithms, the same same candidates could be favoured
00:07:45favoured again and again. Researchers Researchers have a term for this
00:07:49this risk algorithmic monoculture. monoculture. That's not actually actually a new phenomenon. It has
00:07:52has not a lot to do with AI. To be
00:07:54be honest with you. So if you think
00:07:57think back 3040 years, we would typically typically see the same types of people
00:07:59people getting the best jobs anyway, anyway, you know, those people were
00:08:02were well off. They might be members members of certain majority groups,
00:08:05groups, they might have access to to certain social privilege. They They might have gone to the best
00:08:09best universities. And those people people would always have had their their pick of jobs. And then if you
00:08:12you think about assessment before before AI, employers were still able
00:08:15able to configure systems to choose
00:08:17choose certain types of people. This
00:08:19This is contested territory, both both which biases humans may have
00:08:23have and which factors may offer offer reasonable grounds to favour
00:08:26favour or reject a candidate. And
00:08:29And though it's claimed AI can move
00:08:31move beyond human biases given it
00:08:33it learns from human data that is
00:08:36is far from guaranteed. Whatever Whatever the merits, if you do get
00:08:39get through an AI shortlist, next
00:08:42next may come an AI interview. Hi. Hi. I'll be your AI interviewer today.
00:08:46today. My goal is to learn more about about you and the experiences, skills
00:08:49skills and competencies you might might bring to this role. Sometimes
00:08:53Sometimes an AI avatar will ask you
00:08:55you questions and then respond to to your answers. Other times you're
00:08:59you're given a set series of questions
00:09:01questions with each answer recorded
00:09:03recorded as a timer counts down.
00:09:05down. The World Economic Forum says
00:09:07says AI led interviews can expand expand opportunities for overlooked
00:09:10overlooked candidates, reduce recruiter
00:09:12recruiter bias, increase efficiency efficiency and make rejection more
00:09:16more constructive. But the experience
00:09:19experience of these interviews isn't
00:09:21isn't always so positive. It's really really uncanny. It's really inhumane.
00:09:25inhumane. And it's like I'm trying trying to speak my heart out, be
00:09:27be as passionate as I can. But the
00:09:31the persona only sees, oh, are you you able to do this? Are you saying
00:09:34saying these key words? How does does it feel when you're talking
00:09:38talking to a AI generated person person to try and get a job? It doesn't
00:09:42doesn't feel nice. It doesn't feel feel nice. It feels like I'm putting
00:09:45putting all this effort in and I
00:09:48I don't see like, like with a normal normal human, you'd see. Yeah. Like,
00:09:51Like, you know, smiles. Got to the
00:09:54the stage where I had an interview
00:09:56interview where I was recorded, but but I was essentially talking to
00:10:00to an AI and the AI would basically basically ask me questions based
00:10:04based on what I was saying. Once
00:10:06Once I had this AI tell me that I
00:10:08I lacked empathy. So that for me
00:10:11me was a bit was a bit crazy. Does Does it matter to you that there's
00:10:15there's no evidence of a human being being involved? Yeah, definitely.
00:10:18definitely. It feels like I'm never
00:10:21never going to be understood by the the other side. It feels like I'm
00:10:24I'm talking to a robot. I've got got to be honest. It feels reasonably reasonably bleak that you're not
00:10:28not just talking about wanting to to get a job. You're talking about about wanting to reach the point
00:10:32point where you can speak to someone. someone. Which is even before getting getting the job, which is even more
00:10:35more like, oh, this is such a long long process I have to go through
00:10:38through to even get my potential potential seen. Question here is
00:10:42is how much of this is the fault fault of new technology? That is
00:10:45is a very real and valid feeling, feeling, and I have a lot of sympathy
00:10:49sympathy with that perspective. Of Of course we all want to meet a human. human. We all want to feel that connection.
00:10:53connection. We want to feel that that our time has been valued and
00:10:56and our efforts have been valued valued because applying for a job job is emotional and important. I
00:11:00I think it's easy to blame AI and and AI in hiring has its flaws, but
00:11:04but I don't think that's the reason reason people aren't necessarily
00:11:06necessarily reaching human being.
00:14:10learn to live with it, but will not
00:14:12not see our lives dominated by it.
00:14:18it. In the 24 hour news cycle, patients
00:14:21patients can be so frustrating, but but it's a crucial tool. I don't
00:14:25don't rush to be the first. I strive
00:14:27strive to get it right. I'm Lucy
00:14:29Lucy Hockings on BBC News Now.
00:15:09Hello. Live from London. This
00:15:12is BBC News. In Germany polls are
00:15:14are open in two states. Political
00:15:16Political pressure is mounting on on Chancellor Friedrich Merz. Two
00:15:20Two people are reportedly killed killed after Ukraine carries out
00:15:23out large-scale drone attacks on
00:15:25on the Moscow region. The brother brother of Princess Diana Earl Spencer
00:15:29Spencer tells the BBC that there there are echoes of what happened
00:15:32happened to his sister in the way way the media is treating Prince
00:15:35Prince Harry and Meghan. Ed Sheeran Sheeran apologises for what he calls
00:15:39calls mistakes as he returns to the the stage for the first time since
00:15:42since rapper Macklemore was dropped
00:15:44dropped from his US tour over pro-Palestinian
00:15:47pro-Palestinian remarks. What is
00:15:48is happening in Gaza is a catastrophic
00:15:52catastrophic and unjustifiable and and disproportionate. My heart has
00:15:55has been broken by the scale of devastation
00:15:57devastation and loss of civilians