When I first heard of the term Artificial Intelligence (AI), I was very young in my career and did not know how it could impact my work. I knew instinctively that it could change the world, and I do not mean for the better.  I had a healthy dose of fear of AI, but I assumed that AI would not become mainstream many years from now. I considered AI as “the devil that I did not know.” The devil that I knew in my early professional career was making itself present in everything that I did professionally.

My profession (human resources) chose me with a passion like the speed at which two people meet during a long train ride and they fall in love when they reach their destination. I was working at a local radio station as a news reporter when I was assigned to report on a jobs program for high school seniors. It was during that assignment, that I was offered a job that would change my career trajectory. I crossed that bridge to switch careers and never looked back.

I stood on the backs of my ancestors and fought in my way, to bring diversity, equity, and inclusion in the human resources world.  I am not without my battle scars. Racism, prejudice, and exclusion are running amuck in Corporate America and I had to decide whether I was going to be one of them (those individuals who kept a blind eye on the injustices going on) or be myself and work to make things equitable in the workforce. I chose the latter and as my ancestors before me, there were consequences for forging this path.

All the hard work that has been put into creating a workforce that is more equitable and holding leaders accountable to their employees now faces a new challenge – how to navigate the treacherous waters of technology. The ethno-technology gap and new AI technology will affect marginalized communities of color.

The ethno-technology gap, affectionately known as the “digital divide,” addresses the major gap between people who can access and use digital technology and those who cannot. This great divide is getting worse as 3.7 billion people across the globe remain unconnected. Here in the United States, only 69 percent of Black Americans and 67 percent of Hispanic Americans have desktop or laptop computers, compared with 80 percent of White Americans. As this gap grows wider, this creates further segregation among the haves and have-nots of internet access.

In an ABC News report aired on February 3, 2024, the news touted a surge in employment hiring in January 2024 and an unemployment rate at a near-historic low. Great news for anyone who might be seeking employment…. except if you are black. The unemployment rate among Black men jumped to 5.3% in January, rising from 4.6% over the previous month, according to data released by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The inevitable fates of Black and white workers last month exemplify a broader disparity in employment between the two groups that stretches back more than 50 years. The United States first began collecting this type of data in 1972, and since that time, the Black unemployment rate has consistently stood at levels twice as high as the unemployment rate among white people. The relationship has undergone occasional shifts up or down but quickly returned to a level of two to one.

As an HR practitioner, I have a healthy dose of fear for black and brown people in this digital divide. In talent acquisition, the use of AI to filter and select prospective candidates, bias can be built into this process that will allow only certain types of candidates to be selected for interviews. The AI system can be asked to omit the names of candidates who appear to be ethnic. AI can be built to omit prospective candidates from certain schools (omitting graduates from HBCUs). These are just of few of the biases that can be built into AI. AI systems trained on biased data could immortalize discrimination in hiring, performance assessments, and other workplace decisions.

And, of course, AI advancements can eliminate the need for humans to function in certain roles. There are so many unanswered questions about this new technology. According to data provided by SHRM, the number of HR professionals using AI increased by 20%. Currently, 78 percent of HR professionals have no organizational policies or rules to address generative AI systems.

So many black and brown people are still suffering at the hands of Jim Crow…but now Jim Crow has a makeover and now calls itself AI. If this feels vaguely like “The Wild Wild West,” then it is time to begin putting on our hard hat and combat boots because we are building another bridge to help our community navigate over the deepening waters of discrimination.

And yes, AI is changing everything, and it will impact us all.