An external stability audit framework to test the validity of personality prediction in AI hiring.

Automated hiring systems are among the fastest-developing of all high-stakes AI systems. Among these are algorithmic personality tests that use insights from psychometric testing, and promise to surface personality traits indicative of future success based on job seekers' resumes or social media profiles. We interrogate the validity of such systems using stability of the outputs they produce, noting that reliability is a necessary, but not a sufficient, condition for validity.

Violent conflict exacerbated drought-related food insecurity between 2009 and 2019 in sub-Saharan Africa.

Conflict, drought and locusts are leading concerns for African food security but the relative importance and spatiotemporal scale of crises resulting from each hazard is poorly characterized. Here we use continuous, subnational data to demonstrate that the rise of food insecurity across sub-Saharan Africa that began in 2014 is attributable to an increase in violent conflict, particularly in South Sudan and Nigeria. Although drought remains a leading trigger of food crises, the prevalence of drought-related crises did not increase from 2009 to 2018.