People use
artificial intelligence for all different types of things.

It includes
deepfake technology to make people look and sound however they want.

Companies are
faced with scammers using AI to disguise themselves in video interviews, get
hired and then infiltrate the company.

Research firm
Gartner predicts that by 2028, one in four job candidates across the world will
be fake.

Scammers have
been doing this for years without AI.

Last year, the
Justice Department announced charges against a man in Nashville, Tennessee.
He’s accused of helping North Korean scammers get jobs as IT workers using
stolen identities. They were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars – money that
was funneled to the North Korean government for its weapons program. 

Authorities
believe AI is making it easier and more sophisticated to scam companies. It’s
incredibly simple to create fake personas – a completely new version of
yourself that looks different, sounds different or more. 

ResumeGenius
reports 17% of hiring managers surveyed in a recent study said they had encountered
candidates using deepfake technology to alter their video interviews. 

It begs the
question: What can the people who do the hiring do about the AI deepfakes?

WRAL News spoke
with Pam Genske, the vice president of human resources at Capitol Broadcasting
Company [CBC]. CBC is the parent company of WRAL.

WRAL News asked
Genske if she’s having conversations about deepfakes with industry
professionals.

“They are
coming up more and more frequently,” Genske said. “Some companies are using an
exclusive, they’ll send an email link to people and say, ‘Hey I want you to
answer these questions on a video and nobody’s on the other side.’

“That’s
happening a lot more frequently, and I’m not a
big fan of that because it doesn’t set up a good candidate experience, but it
saves companies that are doing volume hiring a lot of time.”

WRAL News asked
Genske if she’s heard of companies accidentally employing someone they thought
was another person.

“Yes,” Genske
said. “Especially companies that hire people who are purely remote.

“If you don’t
have some checks and balances inside of things, those things can happen pretty
easily. You’ve really got to have processes and procedures in place to keep
those things from happening.”

Related: Creating realistic deepfakes is getting easier than ever. Fighting back may take even more AI

Some people
blame the companies who hire AI scammers, saying they should only hire someone
they have met in person.

One of the
reasons someone could hire an AI scammer is because of high-volume hiring, when
a company needs to hire a lot of new people, fast.

Genske said it
can be one reason why companies spend less time screening candidates, opting
for video interviews instead of in-person ones.

Some companies actually use AI software – like Paradox AI or
HireVue – to conduct the video interviews.  

Deepfakes in the hiring process are just another example of
how AI can be both a solution and cause new problems.

Companies are trying to use AI to protect themselves against
scammers – but Genske said the technology isn’t there yet. She said it’s not
quite reliable enough.