By OLIVIA OLANDER and NICK NIEDZWIADEK
08/07/2023 10:00 AM EDT
AFL-CIO AND AI: Unions aren’t taking their eyes off AI.
While high profile strikes among actors and writers have put concerns about artificially generated work into headlines for months, AFL-CIO’s Tech Institute in the past week started to convene a labor table with a range of its affiliates about artificial intelligence policy and regulation, institute deputy director Arohi Pathak told Shift.
The planned biweekly meetings add on to the institute’s work on digital technology and automation’s impact on the workforce since 2021, and a growing emphasis within the federation on new forms of AI.
“We want to make sure that worker voice, that worker experience is centered in this work as it develops,” Pathak said.
That’s particularly important given President Joe Biden’s investments in job creation, she said. (The administration has faced some union pushback on its workforce investments with regard to more analog issues, such as the UAW’s criticism of a loan for battery plants that it saw as unfavorable to workers.)
Though its leaders stress they aren’t anti-tech, AFL-CIO has also been quick to point out the ways they see AI as a threat to worker privacy and employment — and even as potentially deepening wage inequality, it suggested in the federation’s report on executive pay last week.
Also at play are concerns about getting employers to the negotiating table on the issue,...
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