AI Innovation and the Workplace
A different angle of where we should be focused on
AI is finding its way into everyone’s lives, including even the Wendy’s drive thru. Although I think the AI hype is getting a little ahead of itself, as seen through inflated valuations of multiple companies throughout the stock market, it has taken its roots and is here to stay. Workers’ lives are going to change, and many believe for the worst. Is this true?
I generally hear negative perceptions of AI and its integration into everyone’s lives. I have heard concerns about job loss, students taking shortcuts through their education, and above all about privacy. Fears of automation taking jobs away are understandable, but I encourage people to take a look at innovation throughout history and its effects on the job market.
Personal computing came into the sphere in the late 70s and early 80s. In the US, this eliminated 3.5 million jobs at the time but then led to the creation of 19 million jobs. The internet? Killed 10 to 50 million jobs globally but led to the creation of 50 to 100 million jobs. The “app economy” accounted for 20% of all the new US jobs from 2008-2022. New technology affects all industries, and we will continue to see this happening as AI gets better over the years.
I generally take a positive view of AI and its incredible potential to improve the material conditions of individuals’ lives. Yes, AI will eliminate jobs and will hurt workers globally in the short term, but the potential it has for improving healthcare, productivity, and efficiency is exciting in the long run.
AI does feel different from previous innovations, though, and we aren’t quite there yet. So what do we do to protect workers along the way of this development?
Now more than ever, regulations and protections are essential to ensure proper care when implementing AI among employees in workplaces. Dr. Mary Gray recently published an article that stresses the importance of workers having control over workplace activity data. She identifies that AI is ineffective in workplaces without a large amount of data and appropriately large amounts of computing power to keep it online.
Dr. Gray believes that controlling and bargaining with workplace productivity data is essential while AI finds its way into workplaces. She is starting to draft “blueprints” with a team of community health worker organizations in California to bring “privacy techniques and data analytics” to their work. These groups want to start community-operated data trusts to protect workers’ data from company abuse of productivity findings.
Additionally, Dr. Gray believes that workplaces are filled with social opportunities and that this is conducive to working environments because of the collaborative work that often occurs. She identifies that AI could lead to increasing pressures on workers because of bosses’ attempts to squeeze productivity (profit) out of every second a worker has available to them.
Workers’ ability to leverage productivity data can allow for better application of AI within workplaces. Utilizing these new technologies in ways to assist collaboration and not punish socialization can combat many fears that exist in conversations about AI innovation and its effects on workers.
Let me know what you think about worker protections in AI development. Thanks for reading this week!