Is Artificial Intelligence Improving Background Searches?
Background checks form an integral part of the online people search industry. All search engines have already integrated Artificial Intelligence (AI) into their algorithms to a greater or lesser extent and background screening ones make no exception.
How AI is making background searches better
So, the short answer to this question is: yes, it does. AI has already made background searches faster, more targeted, and more efficient.
Faster results
First and foremost, AI-based people search engines are way faster than their microchip-based predecessors.
The new chips that AI runs on mimic how a human brain operates, but with much higher capacity. They can process trillions of operations per second. The results arrive much faster, and the parties concerned have more time to make informed decisions.
More targeted searches
The one thing that sets AI apart from any other algorithm-based technology is its ability to train itself and calibrate its performance.
AI technology’s current autonomy level is insufficient to rule out human intervention altogether. Yet, engineers spend their time overseeing rather than adjusting the people search engine’s performance.
How does AI autonomy affect background search reports?
A standard background search report is quite voluminous and often challenging to navigate. Its sections are tightly packed with information that is only sometimes the primary focus of the end client.
An intelligently-generated report prioritizes the sections containing the most relevant information per the entered values. The engine reshuffles its units so that the most relevant ones appear on top.
A small margin of error
Smart prioritizing does not mean that the background search report will miss crucial information about the subject of the search.
Quite the opposite: AI-based sites can perform a cyber background check with the smallest possible margin of error.
Their self-improving algorithms are incredibly efficient in the procession and management of poorly-organized and contradicting information scraped from the darkest corners of the web.
Improved image and voice search options
Artificial Intelligence allows background check sites to accept images and voice-generated information as search values.
And while the latter option has yet to pick up speed, the former has already become an established standard.
Google has recently introduced its reversed image search engine, also known as “search by image.” This method is familiar to online people search admins too, but the process of image endorsement still needs to be improved.
Voice-generated background checks: a thing of the future
You’ve probably made many unsuccessful attempts to wake up your phone’s Google assistant because it just doesn’t pick up the right pitch in your voice.
Yet, give vent to your emotions while sitting in a traffic jam only once, and your phone will ask what you want it to do.
The real-life example above shows that voice-activated background checks still have a long way to go.
The future of background searches
It has already been established that AI-powered background checks are faster, more accurate, and easier to administer and interpret. In the future, authorities will be strictly monitoring the associated businesses for unfair practices.
The most common issue users report is the inability to request the removal of their personal information from the search engine’s database once they have obtained their report.
It is still being determined how exactly AI will help remedy this delicate situation. One way could be if engines allowed “incognito mode” background searches.
Ethical concerns
And while the option of anonymous background searches is still on the table, it raises some ethical concerns regarding the subject’s right to request information if they’ve been recently screened and by whom.
The question of AI-powered background checks becomes even more interesting if approached from this perspective. Each time one sets out to find out what the web stores about them, they leave a new online data trail.
So, easier and smoother data trail deletion may be yet another way AI can help improve people and background screenings.
Will AI take over?
Since Artificial Intelligence (AI) has improved background searches in so many ways, one cannot but ask themselves if people will be interviewed and hired by robots in the near future.
Artificial intelligence may summarize critical data in a background check report and give the operator some interpretation guidance.
The power of intuition
Yet, leaving it entirely to a machine to decide if a given candidate is the best possible match for a job opening is as unethical as it is dangerous.
No matter how much AI will improve over the next few years, its calculating powers are likely to remain far from human intuition in face-to-face communication.
Alexia is the author at Research Snipers covering all technology news including Google, Apple, Android, Xiaomi, Huawei, Samsung News, and More.
