What Could Have Been: Putting the “Human” back in Human Resources

In case you missed it, a series of bills that sought to implement thoughtful guardrails on the booming AI industry were scrapped following threats from the Trump administration to take Broadband Equity Access Development (BEAD) funding away from states that attempt to regulate AI. This followed a December 2025 executive order from the President in which he stressed the importance of AI companies freely innovating without “cumbersome regulations.” 

In March of this year, the Trump administration released a six-part “National AI Legislative Framework” that emphasized a commitment to win the “AI race.” Many Louisiana lawmakers withdrew their own bills when Governor Landry requested they do so in order to avoid imperiling that federal funding, including bills in areas like healthcare and worker protections that the Trump administration’s framework did not address.  

But the American people, including Louisianans, are crying out for their elected officials to take action. More than half of Americans, 57%, said they believe that artificial intelligence presents “high risks” to society, according to a recent Pew Research survey, while only 25% believe that AI offers “high benefits” to society. The report found that among the respondents who believed that AI poses high risk for society, the most common concern was about AI “eroding human abilities and connection.”

Since most of us appear to sense that AI will have some sort of negative impact on society, especially when it comes to human connection, it seems important to identify the specific areas in our lives where those fears might be realized. One area that is often cited is the workplace, whether we talk about AI transforming the nature of certain jobs or replacing them entirely. But a related and less discussed topic is how AI is used in HR, i.e., in hiring, firing, and employee evaluation processes. 

If you have applied for a job at all in recent years, and then two, three, four, six weeks went by without a response from the employer, you may have asked whether or not your resume was seen at all. For people my age, the job market is already discouraging. Now, the added concern over AI being used to screen applicants only makes the entire process even more daunting. 

During this year’s legislative session, Rep. Vincent Cox III (R-Gretna) introduced House Bill 421, which would have required employers to disclose when they use AI for employment-related decisions, along with adding several other common-sense guardrails that would have helped protect workers from potential harm that an employer’s overreliance on AI might pose.

The World Economic Forum claims that, “Approximately 88% of companies already use some form of AI for initial candidate screening.” That’s understandable, since AI can be an effective efficiency tool. But there are concerns over blind spots in AI that can contribute to serious harms, like hiring discrimination. 

Consider the ongoing lawsuit against the software company Workday, which primarily provides companies with financial and HR management. The suit alleges that Workday’s application screening technology discriminated against applicants who are over 40 years old. The case is a microcosm of the larger concern about letting AI make decisions instead of humans, where the most qualified candidates get overlooked due to AI-perceived “flaws,” or even a situation where those “flaws” are programmed into the algorithm in order to avoid the appearance of breaking existing employment laws, including laws that bar discrimination. 

Beyond the hiring process, AI’s presence in the workplace is also growing rapidly. A May 2025 report by the University of California–Berkeley Labor Center highlights how employers are using technology to make employment-related decisions. Companies can use electronic surveillance (from GPS tracking or data collection) to feed computer programs that can then produce guides for them to set schedules or assign tasks. 

However, the data collected can also be used to feed into so-called automated decision systems (ADS). These systems can analyze worker data to “guide workplace decisions,” by ranking workers, predicting workers’ future behavior, or even giving workers directions regarding their tasks.   

Companies can also use AI to make decisions about their workers regarding anything from work schedules, to job tasks, to hiring, firing, and promotion decisions, and even determining wages and benefits. This new reality has real-life consequences that often work against working people. 

For example, a UPS driver was fired based on shoddy video footage, which raised concerns over how employers can use technology to make unfair disciplinary decisions. Amazon used an AI recruiting system that discriminated against women, raising concerns about how employers can use AI as a loophole to get around civil rights laws. And cases of employers using AI to set wages can lead to age-old discussions about wage discrimination. 

We’ve also already seen how companies are using AI to track employee performance. Burger King began testing an AI-headset that monitored how polite employees were to customers by tracking the use of certain key words and phrases like “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.” While Burger King insists that the AI is being used strictly as a “coaching tool,” there are still concerns over how the system collects employee data. 

To reiterate, there is nothing inherently wrong with employers using technology, including AI, to guide decision-making in the workplace. It can be a useful tool to boost efficiency. But the speed at which the technology is evolving, and the lack of thoughtful regulations in place to protect workers, puts everyone at risk. Without explicit language regarding AI use in the workplace, employers could use the lack of regulations as a loophole to get around existing worker protection laws. Fortunately, there has been significant movement across various state legislatures to address these concerns. 

Another report from the UC-Berkeley Labor Center chronicles legislation across the country that regulates AI in employment decisions. While each of these bills vary in different ways, the bulk of them share some key similarities. Among them are: 

• Requiring employers to give notice to employees when they use AI in the workplace

• Requiring employers to give notice to applicants when they use AI in the hiring process

• Prohibiting employers from using AI as a loophole to get around existing labor and civil rights laws 

• Prohibiting employers from solely relying on AI to make firing and disciplinary decisions 

• And, when employers do use AI, requiring human review. 

A large chunk of these regulations made up California’s SB 7, known as the “No Robo Bosses Act.” 

Ultimately, nobody wants to be fired by a robot. Nobody wants to be disciplined by one, either. Nobody wants an AI surveillance system to track their performance. And no one wants employers to use AI as a loophole to discriminate. The hiring process is already exhausting and demoralizing for myself and my peers, and if you already have a job, you deserve to be treated fairly and with dignity. By a human.