The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other
The Logical End Point of AI Job Interviews Is Two Bots Talking to Each Other
AI 面试的逻辑终点：两个机器人互相对话
Christopher has become accustomed to jumping through the endless hoops of the modern job hunt. Like many government contractors, his work has dried up in the DOGE era. Over the past six months, he has applied to roughly 700 jobs; in the vast majority of cases, he’s heard nothing back.
Christopher 已经习惯了在现代求职过程中经历无穷无尽的繁琐流程。像许多政府承包商一样，他的工作在“政府效率部”（DOGE）时代变得难以为继。在过去的六个月里，他投递了大约 700 份工作申请；但在绝大多数情况下，他都石沉大海，没有收到任何回音。
Five of these applications have gone through “Riley,” an AI recruiter for the IT firm Everforth Apex Systems. The first time Riley reached out, Christopher was excited. It was June, and he had by then realized how difficult the job market was. (Christopher asked that WIRED use only his first name as his job hunt continues.) A text from Riley felt like a rare opportunity to pitch himself, even if his interlocutor was virtual.
其中五份申请是通过 IT 公司 Everforth Apex Systems 的 AI 招聘专员“Riley”进行的。Riley 第一次联系 Christopher 时，他感到很兴奋。那是六月，他当时已经意识到就业市场有多么艰难。（Christopher 要求 WIRED 在报道中仅使用他的名字，因为他的求职仍在继续。）来自 Riley 的一条短信让他觉得这是一个推销自己的难得机会，即使对方只是一个虚拟程序。
During his first call with Riley, Christopher answered questions about his work authorization and his professional background. Riley promised that, if Christopher met the qualifications, someone would be in touch. But a human recruiter never reached out. Nor did the AI agent—until a little over a week later, when Riley texted Christopher about “another opportunity.”
在与 Riley 的第一次通话中，Christopher 回答了关于工作许可和职业背景的问题。Riley 承诺，如果 Christopher 符合条件，会有人与他联系。但人类招聘人员从未出现。AI 代理也没有——直到一周多后，Riley 给 Christopher 发短信询问“另一个机会”。
Christopher hoped he could improve upon his original interview. So he set up another call with the AI agent. Then again for another job. And another. None of the interviews resulted in any follow-up conversations or emails; he never even received an automated rejection text.
Christopher 希望能改进他最初的面试表现。于是，他再次与该 AI 代理进行了通话。接着又为了另一份工作再次通话。然后是下一次。这些面试都没有带来任何后续的对话或邮件；他甚至从未收到过一条自动拒绝的短信。
By the fifth time Riley texted him, Christopher had had enough. If the company was going to use AI, he reasoned, why shouldn’t he do the same?
当 Riley 第五次给他发短信时，Christopher 忍无可忍了。他心想，如果公司要使用 AI，那他为什么不能也这样做呢？
Christopher typed a handful of sentences of background information into ChatGPT Voice and told it to stand in as “Christopher.” Then, Christopher says, when Riley called, “I just put them next to each other, and they just hit it off.”
Christopher 在 ChatGPT 语音版中输入了几句背景信息，并让它扮演“Christopher”。然后，Christopher 说，当 Riley 打来电话时，“我只是把它们放在一起，它们就一拍即合了。”
The call lasted 10 minutes. Riley told ChatGPT it was “great talking to you.” ChatGPT said it appreciated “how clear and straightforward the process was.” During one particularly entertaining sequence, the bots tried to nail down a potential start date and got trapped in a circular conversation about “standard onboarding and background checks.” Riley promised that a recruiter would reach out if the application met the company’s qualifications, just as she had the other four times. Again, a recruiter never materialized. It was, as Christopher calls it, a “slop flywheel.”
通话持续了 10 分钟。Riley 对 ChatGPT 说“很高兴与你交谈”。ChatGPT 则表示赞赏“这个流程是多么清晰明了”。在一段特别有趣的对话中，两个机器人试图确定一个潜在的入职日期，结果陷入了关于“标准入职流程和背景调查”的循环对话中。Riley 承诺，如果申请符合公司要求，招聘人员会联系他，就像前四次一样。结果，招聘人员依然没有出现。正如 Christopher 所说，这是一个“垃圾循环”。
“This is one synthetic persona giving slop data to another synthetic persona,” he says. “And all of the data is going—where? Nowhere.” The exercise was a mix of “mischievous fun” and frustration, Christopher says, as well as “a dismissal of ever wanting to work” with this company.
“这是一个合成人格在向另一个合成人格提供垃圾数据，”他说。“而所有这些数据都去了哪里？哪里也没去。”Christopher 说，这次尝试既有“恶作剧的乐趣”，也有挫败感，同时也代表了他“彻底放弃为这家公司工作”的念头。
Everforth Apex Systems did not respond to WIRED’s request for comment.
Everforth Apex Systems 没有回应 WIRED 的置评请求。
Though AI has seeped into every step of the job hunt for both applicants and recruiters, it has taken time to catch on in interviews. Voice AI is infamously tricky to pull off, as agents get tripped up by accents or “ums.” Behavior that would be second nature to a human—like not interrupting a candidate—turns into a “very, very difficult engineering problem,” according to Ophir Samson, the head of voice AI at recruitment platform Greenhouse. But recruiters, overwhelmed with the glut of applications, have increasingly turned to voice AI tools to screen candidates, with 63 percent of job seekers reporting they’ve encountered an AI interview, according to Greenhouse, according to Greenhouse.
尽管 AI 已经渗透到求职者和招聘人员求职过程的每一步，但在面试中普及还需要时间。语音 AI 的实现难度众所周知，因为代理程序很容易被口音或“嗯、啊”之类的语气词干扰。招聘平台 Greenhouse 的语音 AI 主管 Ophir Samson 表示，对人类来说是本能的行为——比如不打断候选人——在 AI 看来却成了“非常、非常困难的工程问题”。但由于申请数量过多，招聘人员越来越多地转向使用语音 AI 工具来筛选候选人。据 Greenhouse 统计，63% 的求职者表示他们遇到过 AI 面试。
As recruiters turned to AI, so did applicants. Candidates using AI in the interview process has become so common that AI recruitment startups like Ribbon promise to help identify “overly scripted, AI-assisted, or coached” responses—just like those in Christopher’s experiment.
随着招聘人员转向 AI，求职者也随之跟进。候选人在面试过程中使用 AI 已经变得非常普遍，以至于像 Ribbon 这样的 AI 招聘初创公司承诺可以帮助识别“过度照本宣科、AI 辅助或经过辅导”的回答——就像 Christopher 实验中的那些回答一样。
Now there are rumblings that bot-on-bot interviews aren’t duplicitous but a preview of things to come. In many ways, it’s the “next logical stage,” Mark Monaghan, vice president of organizational development at call center company IQor, tells WIRED.
现在有传言称，机器人对机器人的面试并非欺骗，而是未来趋势的预演。呼叫中心公司 IQor 的组织发展副总裁 Mark Monaghan 对 WIRED 表示，在许多方面，这是“下一个合乎逻辑的阶段”。
That doesn’t mean he’s entirely happy about it. In Christopher’s case, Monaghan believes, the use of AI was more than justified. “If you’re going to send a bot to me,” he says, “I’ll send a bot to you.”
这并不意味着他对此感到完全高兴。Monaghan 认为，在 Christopher 的案例中，使用 AI 是完全合理的。“如果你要派一个机器人来找我，”他说，“那我就派一个机器人回敬你。”
After his fifth interview with no follow-up, Christopher decided to apply for one more Everforth Apex job. Perhaps, Christopher thought, the problem wasn’t AI. Maybe it was him. Maybe if Riley were able to speak to the company’s dream candidate, things would go differently. So he created a fake candidate, whom he called Don Dickner, packing a résumé to the brim with qualifications pulled from an open job posting.
在第五次面试仍无下文后，Christopher 决定再申请一份 Everforth Apex 的工作。Christopher 心想，也许问题不在于 AI，而在于他自己。也许如果 Riley 能与公司心目中的理想候选人交谈，情况会有所不同。于是，他创建了一个名为 Don Dickner 的虚假候选人，并根据公开的招聘启事，在简历中塞满了各种资历。
After Christopher submitted the application, Riley immediately reached out. This time, the virtual recruiter spoke with ChatGPT—posing as Dickner—for 23 minutes. They discussed “sustainable operational improvement,” protecting “customer experience under volume pressure,” and refusing to let “tribal knowledge drift.” ChatGPT had an answer for every question, and a personal anecdote for every qualification. As the interview wrapped up, ChatGPT said it had a “few more questions I’d like answered.”
Christopher 提交申请后，Riley 立即联系了他。这一次，这位虚拟招聘专员与冒充 Dickner 的 ChatGPT 交谈了 23 分钟。他们讨论了“可持续的运营改进”、在“业务压力下保护客户体验”以及拒绝让“部落知识流失”。ChatGPT 对每个问题都有答案，对每一项资历都有个人轶事。面试结束时，ChatGPT 说它还有“几个问题想请教”。
“I appreciate it,” Riley responded. “Upon carefully reviewing your application, we will assess your qualifications for the position. Should you meet our criteria, a recruiter from Everforth Apex will reach out to schedule a brief conversation.”
“我很感激，”Riley 回应道。“在仔细审查您的申请后，我们将评估您是否符合该职位的资格。如果您符合我们的标准，Everforth Apex 的招聘人员将与您联系，安排一次简短的交谈。”
Christopher never heard from Riley again.
Christopher 再也没有收到 Riley 的任何消息。