Would you like to be interviewed by an AI bot instead?

I don't think I want to be interviewed by a human again," said a 58-year-old chartered accountant who recently had an interview with a multinational company.

- DEVINA SENGUPTA

I wasn't sure if I heard her right and asked her to repeat herself. Why would anyone prefer to be interviewed by an algorithm-driven bot over a human?

The Mumbai-based accountant has been interviewed 27 times in her career—25 times by humans and twice by artificial intelligence (AI). She was initially nervous, and in her first AI interview, the American-accented artificial voice asked such a multi-pronged and convoluted question that she was overwhelmed. She logged out and never attempted that interview again, despite reminder emails from the firm behind the exercise.

It is unlikely that she would have logged out or done the closest equivalent had there been people on the other side; that would have been unprofessional and rude. But mercifully, AI bots do not have feelings... even if they sometimes seem to.

It was the chartered accountant's second interview, this one for a quality and audit role, that began to change her mind. As she recounts the experience, staring at a screensaver while an American-accented voice asked questions felt oddly comforting.

Why? I asked. Didn't she miss gauging how the interview was going from the expressions of panelists?