Could you be required to implement AI to meet existing WHS duties?
Artificial intelligence (AI) is being used in Australian workplaces now, allocating tasks, monitoring fatigue, detecting hazards, and influencing decisions that directly affect worker safety. The legal frameworks governing workplace safety (developed long before AI) were not designed with AI in mind and are now playing catch-up. For officers and corporate duty holders, this raises two distinct but equally pressing questions:
AI adoption introduces new risks that must be managed under existing WHS laws. The use of AI to track workers, manage performance, and allocate tasks can create significant psychosocial hazards, including low job control, poor organisational justice, and excessive monitoring, all of which are well-recognised WHS risks.
Perhaps less well understood is the allocation of WHS responsibility in situations where AI is making, or materially influencing, safety-critical decisions. How does an officer verify that an AI-driven fatigue monitoring or hazard detection system is functioning as intended, when the system itself may not be able to be audited using traditional methods? To what extent can a duty holder rely on the expertise of third-party AI providers when trusting the AI systems they adopt in their operations?
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