Addressing AI risks in the workplace. Workers and algorithms

Summary:

Algorithms and artificial intelligence (AI) are changing the way people live and work. Depending on how AI technologies are used and what purpose they serve, they can drive progress and benefit the whole of society, but they also raise ethical concerns and may cause harm. When introduced to the world of work, their transformative potential runs into complex national and EU rules. Existing labour laws, put in place before AI systems came on the scene, do not appear fit to provide meaningful guiderails. As with any new technologies, tensions arise between two opposing regulatory approaches: strict regulation to safeguard society from potential hazards and minimum regulation to promote the technology's deployment and innovation.

For employers who invest in AI systems, the main motivation is better workplace organisation, increased productivity, and competitiveness. Workers, on the other hand, may fear losing their jobs, and also want to have a say in how AI and algorithms are to become part of their daily lives. Focusing on workplace deployment of AI, this briefing looks at the state of play of algorithmic management in the workplace and some issues relating to the data that algorithms use and generate. It offers an overview of the current top-down EU legislative approach, of insights brought by the European Parliament, and of advances in collective bargaining, demonstrating the potential of a bottom-up approach to complement AI deployment. The briefing looks at the potential use of sleeping clauses in the existing EU legal framework and – taking note of the views of both employers and trade unions – highlights the many open questions that remain.

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