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National

Once, a misguided tweet or racist Facebook post from years ago might have avoided a hiring manager’s notice. But now, artificial intelligence is leaving no tweet unread in the search for job candidates' bad online behavior.

Why it matters: Companies are placing applicants under a high-powered microscope as they seek to avoid hiring employees who might create a toxic environment or harm the firm's image. But it's also limiting employee opportunities.

In February, the NYT fired writer Quinn Norton within hours of announcing her hiring. In that time, several old tweets surfaced in which she had used or amplified racist and homophobic slurs.

The Times said it had not previously seen the tweets — several needles in a haystack of Norton’s nearly 90,000 messages.

This is the sort of public fiasco companies would rather avoid. But while HR can’t sift through a candidate’s entire Twitter timeline, a machine can.

Enter the algorithms. Several companies offer to set the pattern-matching power of AI on the social feeds of job hopefuls to uncover posts that are racist, sexist, violent, or otherwise objectionable.

Fama contracts with about 100 companies, each with more than 1,000 employees. For each online check, it returns a report with links to offending posts.

Last month, Predictim began offering a similar service to parents seeking babysitters. The company goes further than Fama, asking candidates for permission to access their private posts and comments in addition to public ones. The resulting report — a sample is available here — assigns risk scores ranging from 1 to 5, overall and for categories that include drug use, bullying, and "bad attitude."

Privacy advocates worry that such systems can make basic mistakes with lasting effects.

"The automated processing of human speech, including social media, is extremely unreliable even with the most advanced AI. Computers just don’t get context. I hate to think of people being unfairly rejected from jobs because some computer decides they have a 'bad attitude,' or some other red flag."

Jay Stanley, senior policy analyst at the American Civil Liberties Union

AI-powered hiring systems can be extremely susceptible to bias.

If a system is fed hiring data and learns that male candidates are hired more often than female ones, it can start to favor men, like an AI program Amazon tested.

To avoid this trap, Fama and Predictim withheld sensitive information like gender and race from the training data, so their AI systems evaluate only the contents of social media posts.

Both companies’ CEOs told Axios they work to minimize bias by carefully choosing training data, using a diverse group of people to label it, and regularly testing outputs for fairness.

Users of Predictim, the month-old babysitter-checking service, have already run about 300 scans, said CEO Sal Parsa. Of those, 10% were flagged as moderately risky or higher, and 2.7% as very risky.

"Extreme vetting" for hiring

AI leaves no tweet unread in the search for applicants' bad behavior.

A black and white photo of a man and a woman conversing across a table

A job interview in 1935. Photo: Ullstein Bild via Getty Images

Future

Artificial intelligence

Technology

Business

Artificial Intelligence

From the Valley to D.C., Big Tech players like Facebook, Google and Amazon are under more scrutiny than ever as new technology develops and privacy and antitrust concerns grow in lockstep with companies’ ambitions.

Companies added jobs for the 97th straight month — and the economy has now grown for 112, on track to match the longest economic expansion in American history (120 months ending in 2001). For the second-straight month, U.S. joblessness is 3.7%, the lowest in 49 years. And wages are up 3.1% year-on-year, the highest rate since 2009.

But there are counter-signals, too: Wage growth is beating inflation, for instance, but — for reasons no one has convincingly explained — still refuses to break into the solid gains of the booming late 1960s and early 2000s.

Wage "growth rates are below historical averages but increasing," Laurence Ales, an economics professor the Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon University, tells Axios.

Americans are working hard, but still not at historical rates: The average workweek rose to 34.5 hours from 34.4 hours in September. But the so-called "Labor Force Participation Rate" — a broad measure of how many prime-age people are working — was 62.9%, which is higher than recent lows but still among the smallest number in four decades.

One troubling aspect is that young men are not fully part of the boom:

Despite the economic conditions, fewer prime-age men between 25 and 34 years old are working — or looking for work — than before the financial crash, writes Bloomberg's Jeanna Smialek.

In 2008, their labor participation rate was 86.8%; now it's 86.1%.

If these men were working at the same rate as a decade ago, 500,000 more would be on the job, or looking for one.

On a broad level, the economy is cooling: Next year, GDP growth is forecast to steadily shrink as the effect of the tax cut wears off. Meanwhile, the Commerce Department said today the U.S. is exporting less for the fourth-straight month, and the trade deficit with China rose again to a record $40.2 billion.

In October, U.S. stock markets marked their worst month since 2011. The S&P 500 fell again today by 0.63% to 2,723.

The forecasts for what comes next are all over the map — but recession is a common theme, Axios' Courtenay Brown reports.

Megan Greene, chief economist at Manulife Asset Management, expects a recession after 2021.

But it could be as early as next year, according to Mark Yusko, founder of hedge fund Morgan Creek Capital. He puts the odds at 100% — thanks to trade tensions.

"The trade rhetoric is one of the dumbest things in the history of all administrations and it will cause a global recession," Yusko said at a recent investment conference.

A hot but cooling economy

Companies added jobs for the 97th straight month.

Economy

Elite U.S. tech workers, some awakened to political organizing by the election of President Trump, are increasingly giving their own CEOs a painful wakeup call via internal dissents on company business decisions and policies.

Between the lines: It's a "Revolt of the Haves," with highly-paid workers seeking to leverage their employers in ways that lower-skilled workforces cannot, AP's Mae Anderson and Matt O'Brien report.

Microsoft and Amazon workers have dissented on facial recognition projects used by U.S. law enforcement and immigration services.

Google staffers have protested the company's censored search engine for China and its projects with the U.S. military.

Just this week, hundreds of Google employees walked out in protest of the company's handling of sexual harassment.

"Walkout co-organizer Meredith Whittaker... said in an interview that workers’ demands for better treatment at the company are intertwined with their larger concerns about a 'general abuse of power' that includes how Google’s business ventures affect society."

The bottom line: The midterms are Tuesday, but these political earthquakes look like they're just getting started.

The tech elites are revolting

These political earthquakes look like they're just getting started.

Illustration of fists holding computer arrows.

Big Tech backlash

Politics

Big Tech

Pro Rata

Axios Pro Rata

Plant-based meat maker Beyond Meat has added Coca-Cola CFO Kathy Waller and Twitter CFO Ned Segal to its board of directors, Axios has learned from multiple sources.

Why it matters: The California company, which was valued last year at $550 million by venture capitalists, reportedly is prepping for an IPO. Adding a pair of public company CFOs could help expedite the process. 

Scoop: Beyond Meat adds Coca-Cola and Twitter CFOs to its board

California company is preparing to go public.

Food

Men between the ages of 25-34 are participating in the job market — that is, working or looking for a job — at lower rates than they were prior to the 2008 financial crisis (86.8% then vs. 86.1% now), according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics, despite recent wage growth and lower unemployment.

The bottom line: 500,000 more men would currently be working or looking for employment if their participation was at pre-2008 levels, Bloomberg reports.

The big picture: Several economists have said the drop has contributed to a simultaneous dip in what they characterize as "marriageable" men, which has resulted in fewer marriages and higher rates of children being born out of wedlock. This, they say, can lead to future financial instability for families.

Men in the 25-34 age group graduated from high school and college just as the job market fell into stagnation following the 2008 financial downturn, and many went back to school due to the failing job market.

Many were also shut out of jobs in the manufacturing sector, which are "dead-end jobs" anyway, according to a JFF and Burning Glass Technologies study.

The top reason for not working was disability or illness (32.9% cited this in 2016, according to an analysis by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City).

The opioid epidemic may also be a factor, given the workforce has fallen significantly in areas with high concentrations of opioid prescriptions.

The other side: Women in the same age group have surpassed their pre-2008 job market participation rate (it was 70.9% then and is now 74.0%). 

How the Great Recession fueled for-profit colleges

Why businesses have a stake in solving the opioid epidemic

Millennial men are working less than they were pre-recession

Despite recent wage growth and lower unemployment.

Two people in suits flip through job offerings at career fair.

Employment

Labor Market

Top stories & latest news on the Federal Reserve, real-time data, plus the biggest shifts happening in the U.S. and global economy.

After a record economic expansion, the coronavirus pandemic sent the U.S. economy into a recession as unemployment soared to staggering heights. The country now faces urgent questions about how much stimulus is needed for reeling consumers and businesses, and what a recovery might look like.

Economy & Business

Axios AI+

As 49ers quarterback Nick Mullens threw for his first NFL touchdown Thursday night, a 2-man video crew from Intel was scrambling to create a 360-degree highlight so that Fox could broadcast it minutes later.

Why it matters: The immersive highlight is the latest evolution of technology Intel has been working on for the past couple of years, beginning with its 2016 purchase of Israel's Replay Technologies. Intel has bet big on sports, with then-CEO Brian Krzanich telling Axios last year that he saw it as a potential billion dollar business in the coming years.

Since then, Intel has sped up the time it takes to make its clips. It's also added a new option to show a highlight from any player's point of view, in addition to the signature view, which freezes the action and rotates 360 degrees for a panoramic image.

Fun note: For the second 49ers touchdown, minutes later, the crew decided to go with Mullens' point-of-view as he scanned the receivers before throwing to his eventual target.

Details: Intel's cameras are in 13 NFL stadiums (up from 10 last year), and it serves up highlights to broadcasters and teams as well as a dedicated page on NFL.com.

The company is also pushing ahead with another technology, TrueVR, that enables sports to be viewed in virtual reality, though the company has slowed its ambitions a bit as VR headset use has failed to live up expectations.

Yes, but: It's far from that point yet, with Intel and its rivals, as well as teams and leagues, still trying to find the right experiences that can either significantly complement, or be a viable alternative to, traditional TV broadcasts.

James Carwana, VP of Intel Sports, likens where the current state of his business to the early days of Netflix, when it was sending out DVDs through the mail, rather than streaming original content.

"I would argue we are in a similar phase." 

Inside Intel's big bet on Virtual Reality sports

Intel sees sports VR as a business that could be worth billions.

A producer edits a 360-degree highlight. 

A producer edits a 360-degree highlight. Photo: Ina Fried/Axios

Intel

Sports

Shifts in technology and media are changing the way we play, watch and understand sports. Business models are adapting and social change is forcing those in charge of teams and leagues to reconsider decades-old practices.

All U.S. sanctions on Iran that were lifted under the 2015 nuclear deal will be reimposed on Monday, however, "eight jurisdictions" will receive exemptions allowing them to continue to import Iranian oil in the short term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said during a call with reporters on Friday.

Why it matters: This is the second and most significant round of sanctions to be reimposed on Iran, targeting its energy, financial and shipping sectors. The announcement both underlines the Trump administration's "maximum pressure" approach to Iran, and the degree to which it has divided the international community. Some Republican hardliners now believe Trump is going soft by not using all the tools at his disposal. 

Between the lines: The reimposition of these sanctions was long expected, but one major question mark was whether Trump would cut Iranian banks off from SWIFT, the network for global financial transactions. 

Politico's Eliana Johnson reports that national security adviser John Bolton favored doing so, but Mnuchin's more conservative position ultimately won out. She reports that some GOP hawks, including Ted Cruz, now want to pass legislation to cut Iran off from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT).

It's a high-stakes debate. Mnuchin argued, per Johnson, that it was "necessary to keep humanitarian aid flowing into the country and to prevent a number of European nations, which opposed the U.S. exit from the Iranian nuclear deal, from forming an alternative network to SWIFT that could include Iran, Russia, China — and to which the U.S. would have no visibility."

The bottom line: Pompeo and Mnuchin said that their goal is to "change the behavior" of the Iranian regime, that the pressure in Tehran is already rising, and that it will only rise higher as they "aggressively enforce" the sanctions. Iran's posture, for now, seems to be to wait out the Trump regime and hope the winds in Washington begin to blow in a different direction soon.

Go deeper: Trump administration blinks on "zero" oil exports from Iran.

Trump to reimpose all Iran sanctions, with exemptions on oil imports

Eight jurisdictions will receive temporary exemptions.

Pompeo briefs reporters. Photo: Jim Watson/AFP/Getty Images

Axios

Friday's top stories

"Extreme vetting" for hiring

A hot but cooling economy

The tech elites are revolting

Scoop: Beyond Meat adds Coca-Cola and Twitter CFOs to its board

Millennial men are working less than they were pre-recession

Inside Intel's big bet on Virtual Reality sports

Trump to reimpose all Iran sanctions, with exemptions on oil imports

Google's top Washington lobbyist is leaving role

Netanyahu backs Saudis over Khashoggi killing

U.S. adds 250k jobs in October, wage growth soars

Watch out: 3 warning signs U.S. economy could be close to recession

SF tech's bitter battle over taxes and homelessness

Groups stoke opposition to merger of T-Mobile and Sprint

Big Oil, governments, banks to huddle on carbon capture tech