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Time of India
2 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
Meta will now let candidates use AI in interviews: Is this the future of hiring in Silicon Valley?
In a move that might signal a seismic shift in how talent is evaluated, Meta has confirmed that it is actively testing AI-enabled interviews where coding candidates can use an artificial intelligence assistant during the assessment process. The update was first reported by 404 Media, which accessed an internal memo titled 'AI-Enabled Interviews—Call for Mock Candidates.' The document invites existing employees to volunteer as test subjects for mock interviews involving AI support, noting that this model is 'more representative of the developer environment that our future employees will work in.' It's not just an experimental idea. Meta appears to be laying the groundwork for a new industry norm, one that acknowledges how AI is already deeply embedded in real-world workflows. From help to hiring: Why Meta is betting on AI tools Confirming the internal pilot, a Meta spokesperson told 404 Media, 'We're obviously focused on using AI to help engineers with their day-to-day work, so it should be no surprise that we're testing how to provide these tools to applicants during interviews.' This is the same company where, just months ago, CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast that he expected AI agents to soon function as 'midlevel engineers' capable of writing code for the company. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Pierce Brosnan's Wife Lost 120 Pounds - This Is Her Now Undo 'Over time,' he added, 'we'll get to a point where a lot of the code in our apps is actually going to be built by AI engineers instead of people engineers.' So why test humans in a way that doesn't reflect that reality? That's the core logic behind Meta's pilot. By allowing AI during interviews, the company is signalling that it's less interested in testing raw memory or speed, and more in evaluating how future employees might collaborate with AI systems under real conditions. It's a big pivot from conventional wisdom and it's catching on across the Valley. A glimpse into the future: Cluely, Columbia and ethical grey zones If Meta is at one end of the curve, Chungin 'Roy' Lee is the outlier who saw it coming just a bit too early. In early 2024, Lee, a then 21-year-old computer science student at Columbia University, developed Interview Coder, an AI tool that could discreetly assist candidates during coding interviews. It captured screen activity, picked up audio cues, and suggested real-time responses. For users, it was a lifeline. For institutions, it was a line crossed. Columbia suspended Lee for a year, citing violation of academic integrity. The scandal could have ended the story but it didn't. Lee moved to San Francisco, rebranded the product as Cluely, and turned it into a stealth-mode AI assistant offering undetectable support not just in interviews, but also exams, meetings and sales calls. By mid-2025, Cluely had raised over $20 million in funding, including a $15 million Series A round led by Andreessen Horowitz. Lee remains defiant about his journey. Speaking to the Associated Press, he said: 'Everyone uses AI now. It doesn't make sense to have systems that test people as if they don't.' While Cluely sits in a controversial corner of the AI productivity movement, Meta's recent decision suggests the narrative is shifting. Rather than penalising candidates for using AI tools, some companies are now building interviews around them. The interview cheat code or new literacy? The trend raises an important question: If AI is going to be an integral part of professional life, should interviews continue to pretend it doesn't exist? For many Silicon Valley employers, the answer may be no. Hiring teams are increasingly interested in how candidates interact with AI, rather than how they perform in isolation. As coding environments become more collaborative with GitHub Copilot, Google Gemini Code Assist and Meta's own Code Llama now common in developer stacks, pure unaided performance is losing relevance. Meanwhile, allowing AI during interviews might make it harder to distinguish between strategic assistance and dependency. It could also widen the gap between candidates trained in AI-integrated environments and those coming from more traditional setups. What does this mean for future applicants? For candidates preparing to enter the tech workforce in 2025 and beyond, Meta's pilot could change how they approach not just interviews but learning itself. It normalises the presence of AI in high-stakes environments. It also redefines what companies consider 'cheating.' The emphasis now appears to be shifting from what you know to how you adapt. In that landscape, the ability to prompt, parse and co-create with AI may soon become just as important as any core coding language. As Chungin Lee's story shows, the tools that once got students suspended may very well become the tools that help them get hired. Meta's pilot is not just a test of software; it's a preview of a job market where human-AI collaboration isn't an advantage, it's the baseline. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here. Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Time of India
5 days ago
- Business
- Time of India
AI startup CEO who Amazon got suspended from college starts new ‘employee dating' policy: ‘Please message me directly…'
Image credit: LinkedIn Artificial Intelligence startup Cluely has introduced a new perk for employees: a matchmaking program that rewards staff for successfully referring dates for their colleagues. In a post shared on professional networking site LinkedIn, the company's CEO Chungin "Roy" Lee unveiled this "companywide policy". Under the new policy, employees will receive $500 (around Rs 43,000) for each successful date referral. The incentive is "stackable," meaning an employee can earn multiple bonuses by setting up different colleagues. The 21-year-old CEO was suspended from Columbia University after Amazon pressured the school over his AI tool, which provided undetectable real-time assistance in exams and interviews held in virtual settings. Lee even used the tool to succeed in interviews at major tech firms before publicly showcasing it, leading to revoked offers and a university investigation. What Cluely CEO said about the new employee dating policy Announcing the policy, Lee wrote: 'Cluely now offers $500 cash referrals for dates. Here's the memo I sent out today: "@everyone NEW COMPANY-WIDE POLICY: If any employee refers a date for any other employee (that they are happy with), the referring employee will receive a one-time cash bonus of $500. This is infinitely stackable. ie if Ben refers a date to Neel whom Neel is happy with, and then subsequently refers a date to Brandon, whom Brandon is happy with, Ben would receive $500 + $500 = $1,000" by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like The Simple Morning Habit for a Flatter Belly After 50! Lulutox Undo Please message me directly if you find any members of the Cluely team attractive. Dating is, and will always be, an important part of our culture until we are all happily married.' Lee, who was a computer science student at Columbia University, was suspended last year for violating the university's Academic Integrity Policy. The AI tool he developed, which at that time was called Interview Coder, helped users with coding interviews. Using it, Lee even secured internship offers from tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and TikTok. He later shared a YouTube video demonstrating its use during an Amazon interview, which reportedly led Amazon to complain to Columbia University. In response, Lee said he had already declined the offer and defended his tool as a critique of outdated interview practices. 5 Tips to Get the Best Deals during sale on Amazon, Flipkart and other online websites AI Masterclass for Students. Upskill Young Ones Today!– Join Now
Time of India
25-07-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Chungin Lee: Do you know why this 21-year-old Silicon Valley CEO was suspended by Columbia University?
In the fast-evolving world of AI and employability, few stories are as polarising or instructive as that of Chungin 'Roy' Lee. Just over a year ago, the 21-year-old computer science student at Columbia University was suspended for building an AI tool deemed incompatible with academic integrity. Today, he is the co-founder and CEO of Cluely, a Silicon Valley startup that has raised $20.3 million in funding and sits at the centre of the ongoing debate around AI-enabled productivity and ethical boundaries. Cluely is a stealth-mode AI assistant that offers real-time, undetectable support across virtual environments including interviews, exams, meetings and more. The question it raises is critical: is this real innovation or engineered dishonesty? The product that started it all In early 2024, while still at Columbia, Lee launched Interview Coder, an AI tool designed to support candidates in real-time coding interviews. It read screen activity, picked up audio, and offered suggestions, all discreetly. The aim, according to Lee, was to help users navigate high-pressure interview formats that had failed to evolve in the age of generative AI. The product gained traction quickly, with over 10,000 users and nearly $47,000 in revenue within months. Lee even used his own tool to crack interviews at tech giants like Amazon, Meta, and TikTok, until he publicly demonstrated its use, prompting companies to rescind offers and Columbia to investigate. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like You Might Want To Buy Baking Soda In Bulk After Reading This Read More Undo From academic setback to entrepreneurial pivot In April 2024, Columbia suspended Lee for a year for violating its Academic Integrity Policy. The disciplinary action might have ended another student's ambitions, but for Lee, it marked a turning point. He moved to San Francisco, teamed up with fellow student Neel Shanmugam, and rebranded his tool as Cluely. Unlike its predecessor, Cluely was designed for broader use. It now supports not just job interviews but exams, meetings, sales pitches, and more, offering real-time, undetectable AI assistance across virtual interactions. The pivot marked Lee's formal transition from a student innovator to a full-time founder operating in one of tech's most scrutinised ethical grey zones. Investors back the vision By April 2025, Cluely had raised $5.3 million in seed funding. Just two months later, Andreessen Horowitz led a $15 million Series A round, signalling high-profile validation of Lee's vision. For Lee, the funding rounds were not just financial milestones; they were affirmations of an idea that many still found difficult to digest. Lee has remained unapologetic about his approach. 'Everyone uses AI now,' he told the Associated Press. 'It doesn't make sense to have systems that test people as if they don't.' For him, Cluely is less about cheating and more about bridging the gap between outdated evaluations and real-world workflows. The career dilemma Lee now embodies Lee's trajectory raises fundamental questions about the future of work and qualification. As AI becomes inseparable from daily productivity, where do we draw the line between assistance and unfair advantage? Employers, including tech giants like Google, are reportedly rethinking their hiring practices. Education systems are scrambling to revisit honour codes that now seem out of sync with how students learn and work. Lee's career graph is marked by sharp pivots: from student to founder, from suspension to seed-stage CEO, from controversy to capital. Each decision has placed him at the intersection of innovation and disruption, and he is leaning into the tension. Whether Cluely emerges as a new standard for AI-native tools or gets regulated out of mainstream use, Lee's story offers an early case study in what it means to build a career in an era where traditional rules are being rewritten by technology. TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us here . Ready to navigate global policies? Secure your overseas future. Get expert guidance now!
Yahoo
10-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Cluely's Roy Lee isn't sweating cheating detectors
Cluely, an AI startup that uses a hidden in-browser window to analyze online conversations, has shot to fame with the controversial claim that its 'undetectability' feature lets users 'cheat on everything.' The company's co-founder, Roy Lee, was suspended from Columbia University for boasting that he used Cluely, originally called Interview Coder, to 'cheat' on a coding test when he was applying for a developer job at Amazon. On Tuesday, another Columbia University student, Patrick Shen, announced on X that he had built Truely, a product designed to help catch 'cheaters' who use Cluely. Marketing itself as an 'anti-Cluely,' Truely claims it can detect the use of unauthorized applications by interviewees or others during online meetings. But Truely's launch didn't faze Lee. 'We don't care if we're able to be detected or not,' Lee told TechCrunch last week. 'The invisibility function is not a core feature of Cluely. It's a nifty add-on. In fact, most enterprises opt to disable the invisibility altogether because of legal implications.' Lee responded to Shen on X by praising Truely, but adding that Cluely 'will likely start prompting our users to be much more transparent about usage.' Since securing a $15 million Series A from Andreessen Horowitz last month, Cluely has shifted its marketing strategy away from promoting 'cheating.' The company's tagline has recently been changed from 'cheat on everything' to 'Everything You Need. Before You Ask. … This feels like cheating.' Cluely's marketing tactics have been described as rage-bait marketing, and now it seems that the company has baited us into thinking of its technology as a cheating tool. However, Lee has much bigger ambitions for Cluely: to take the place of ChatGPT. 'Every time you would reach for our goal is to create a world where you instead reach for Cluely,' Lee said. 'Cluely does functionally the same thing as ChatGPT. The only difference is that it also knows what's on your screen and hears what's going on in your audio.' Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Time of India
22-06-2025
- Business
- Time of India
Horowitz backs AI startup with slogan 'cheat at everything'
Andreessen Horowitz led a $15 million funding round for an artificial intelligence startup called Cluely Inc , famous on social platforms like X for controversial viral marketing stunts and the slogan "cheat on everything". The startup was cofounded by 21-year-old Roy Lee, who was booted from Columbia University earlier this year for creating a tool called Interview Coder that helped technical job candidates cheat on interviews using AI. At the time, he wrote on LinkedIn , "I'm completely kicked out from school. LOL!" More recently, Cluely, which is working on AI transcription and other services, has posted a string of provocative updates and sleek videos. For example, the company promised to pay for dating apps for its employees, said it was hiring 50 interns, made jokes about hiring strippers, and produced a video starring Lee himself using AI to coach him through a date with an older woman. Earlier this month, it threw a startup party that was broken up by the police before it started, according to TechCrunch . Discover the stories of your interest Blockchain 5 Stories Cyber-safety 7 Stories Fintech 9 Stories E-comm 9 Stories ML 8 Stories Edtech 6 Stories
