The hype cycle around automation and AI is at a fever pitch right now, encompassing everything from Amazon robots with a human-like grasp to the idea of "robot" lawyers. But as machines, physical or algorithmic, infiltrate the American workplace, the nation's workers — and the labor unions representing them — want to make sure human interests take precedence over abstract notions of AI-assisted "efficiency." Last week at CES I spoke with Amanda Ballantyne, the director of the AFL-CIO's Technology Institute, who described how the past few years' increased focus on American-made tech and manufacturing has been a salutary development for workers. But that's not all labor wants. America's major unions want to have a say in how new technologies are developed and implemented, with a mind toward incorporating feedback from the workers who actually have to work alongside their new robot colleagues. "People who develop technology, maybe in a lab they think it's going to work perfectly, but I can give you some examples of where technology has been introduced [into a workplace where] they clearly did not consult with people who actually do the job, and it's been a quasi-, if not full, disaster," said D. Taylor, president of the hospitality union UNITE HERE. Taylor pointed to hotel booking software that automated the guest checkout process but threw the housekeeping process into disarray, sending employees to various rooms in a decidedly time-wasting manner. It's a complaint that winds through the discourse around AI development: the decision-making process around how new technologies are implemented is perhaps more important than the underlying tech itself, a line of thinking that also helped inform the Biden administration's AI bill of rights blueprint. "There's a set of really deep set of labor movement issues involved in just ensuring that algorithmic management systems actually follow the law, that there's openness, accountability, and a worker's voice in the way that those systems are implemented," Ballantyne told me, referring specifically to the kinds of algorithms that don't just do various jobs, but track workers' movements, set their hours and perform various other kinds of boss-like tasks. Given that the fundamental raison d'être for the labor movement is negotiating with bosses, human or otherwise, it makes sense that the sector is pushing for a say in how these futuristic technologies are deployed. That's led to initiatives like the Technology Institute that Ballantyne heads, which she describes as an effort not to put the reins on tech in the workplace, but to put human-conscious guardrails in place around it. "We have good and bad technology," Ballantyne said. "There's technology that improves work for working people, and then there's technology that automates and de-skills, and if there's no plan to help workers navigate that then we have job loss and inequity." Ballantyne pointed to the CHIPS and Science Act that passed last year as a major step in the right direction when it comes to building a more worker-focused tech infrastructure, citing its funding for the National Science Fund's workforce-minded Technology, Innovation, and Partnerships directorate. "This is an opportunity for us to bring real workers into research and development at scale," Ballantyne said of the program, which will both bring scientists onto shop floors and union members into research laboratories. "The researchers will have access to workers who understand at a ground level, what's good and bad about how technology works, which ends up creating better technology."
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