The Confederation of British Surgery is the latest organisation to call for face-to-face interviews on concerns about the use of artificial intelligence in interviews.
The use of artificial intelligence by students in interviews has become such an issue that there are growing calls to ban virtual interviews altogether to stop cheating.
In September last year, the Four Nation Postgraduate National Recruitment Programme Board published a position statement on the issue.
Although it recognised that some applicants may use assistive technologies to support communication or processing needs, it was very clear.
“To ensure a fair and equitable interview experience for all applicants, the use of AI technologies, including but not limited to AI-generated responses, virtual assistants, real-time transcription tools, and automated scripts, will not be permitted during online interviews,” it said.
Some Trusts have even refined the guidance further about how AI can and cannot be used. Leeds and York Partnership NHS Foundation Trust, for example, has published its own guide to using AI in recruitment.
Now the Confederation of British Surgery (CBS) has echoed the concerns of the wider sector around the reports of ambient AI being used in interviews to decide who is accepted into surgical training vacancies.
“CBS wholeheartedly supports this call for a return to face-to-face interviews in light of a situation that seriously compromises fairness and integrity,” said CBS president Mark Henley.
“Our profession is built on trust and accountability, and by allowing applicants who have not upheld those values at the very first stage of their careers, we risk undermining the credibility of the surgical training system as a whole,” he added.
Concerns around candidate integrity
Ambient AI is a type of artificial intelligence system that can run in the background, constantly active and responsive. In the context of interviews, it can listen, analyse and respond without prompting, meaning that the interviewee will get real-time suggested answers displayed on their device screen.
As the interview will also be on a screen, and the AI response appears as an overlay, the candidate will exhibit few telltale eye movements, and there will be no need for them to type the questions into the software. For this reason, it is very difficult to detect if a candidate is using it. The real-world issue with this is that a candidate could appear to be prepared, well-structured, and knowledgeable about a certain subject, thus falsely enhancing their potential, whilst potentially knowing very little about what they are speaking about.
Virtual interviews and virtual technical assessments have recently been in the news due to big tech companies having concerns around candidate integrity.
Google has reintroduced in-person interviews for this very reason, amid reports that more than 50% of candidates are using AI tools to solve coding challenges during virtual interviews.
Other corporations reimplementing face-to-face interviews, or rejecting remote hiring, include such companies as McKinsey, Cisco and Deloitte.
The virtual interviews in question are overseen by Medical and Dental Recruitment and Selection (MDRS), the national body responsible for running and coordinating recruitment for all postgraduate medical and dental training across the UK.
MDRS brought in virtual interviewing during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing applicants to log in remotely and take their interviews online.
“The best way to definitively eliminate AI use in interviews is to conduct them face-to-face. We therefore strongly urge MDRS to immediately revert to face-to-face interviews for the upcoming recruitment rounds for both core surgical training and for higher speciality training, to protect the validity and integrity of the selection process, and the safety of our patients,” said Oliver Townsend, president of the British Orthopaedic Trainees Association.
