No one really knows the short- or long-term effects of Artificial Intelligence, but to some degree it will affect workers, consumers, taxpayers and utility rate-payers.
"We do not have a good track record of predicting how technological change will play out in the labor market,” said Martha Gimbel, Executive Director of Yale’s Budget Lab.
Comparisons have been made on the consequences of railroads and radio, the telegraph and television.
Anton Korinek, faculty director at the Economics of Transformative AI Initiative the University of Virginia told The Atlantic’s Josh Tyrangiel, “We can’t quite conceptualize having very smart machines. Machines have always been dumb, and that’s why we don’t trust them and it’s always taken time to roll them out. But if they’re smarter than us, in many ways they can roll themselves out.”
The AFL-CIO’s “Workers First Initiative on AI” states, “Working people need an AI future that makes our jobs safer and more efficient, helps us level up our skills, and protects our rights. But Big Tech corporations are rolling out AI-powered technologies without guardrails in place to protect workers from harm.
“The future of AI is our future, and it’s too important to leave solely in the hands of Big Tech CEOs and billionaires.”
For now, according to Jed Kolko, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International economic, “All the important questions about AI’s effects on the labor market are still unanswered.”
Claude Cummings Jr., President pf the Communications Workers of America, said, “New AI technology has the potential to create economic benefits and improve lives. However, it also presents profound challenges to the rights and livelihoods of workers. Out-of-touch C-suite executives promise starry-eyed investors that AI tools will replace skilled workers. More often, our members correct AI errors while new AI tools are used to cut jobs, intensify surveillance, and automate management.
“As artificial intelligence reshapes our jobs faster than lawmakers can respond, union contracts are the most effective way workers can set enforceable rules for the future of work,” Cummings added. “We know that only union contracts can move at the speed of technological change, and we are working to give workers a voice in creating guardrails.”
The consequences of AI’s arrival is not just about jobs, of course. But that’s a huge concern for U.S. workers.
Many unions know this and are stepping up actions, from the National Union of Healthcare (NUHW), the Transport Workers Union and CWA’s NewsGuild to the United Food & Commercial Workers, the Screen Actors Guild/American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the AFL-CIO itself. The labor federation last month held a summit on the issue with its Commission on the Future of Work and Unions and its comprehensive report “Artificial Intelligence: Principles to Protect Workers,” issued in October.
“Harmful AI is not inevitable—the choices we make today will determine the future of cutting edge technology and work,” the AFL-CIO says. “And doing nothing, as Big Tech special interests would recommend, is a choice—the wrong choice.”
WONDERS AND WORRIES
“Neither AI nor robotics are good nor bad,” said U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.). “Who benefits is the debate we have to undertake.
“Four AI companies are spending $670 billion this year building data centers,” said Sanders. “That’s ten times greater, in GDP, than what we spent on the moon landing. The question we should be asking day after day is ‘Who is pushing this revolution? Who benefits from it? And who gets hurt?’ ”
Advocates point to positive promises. The United Nations wants to guide governments, organizations and everyday people to use AI in disaster management; scientists at California’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in 2024 said integrating AI with HVAC systems could decrease carbon emissions and overall energy consumption by 8% to 19%; and CalTech researcher Anima Anandkumar says it’s very possible for AI to help people make engineering and scientific progress, from designing new medical devices to improving high-resolution weather forecasting.
Others see problems.
* Although a proposed data center was rejected in Pekin, several local governments in Illinois have approved sitings of the noisy facilities that require tons of water for cooling, and considerable power: Aurora, Joliet, McLean County and Yorkville.
Also, at a time of war and global competition, it’s not unreasonable to concede that Data Centers are vulnerable to attacks, too, whether military or espionage.
(Meanwhile, the North American Building Trades Unions seems concerned about getting overlooked with new jobs if the boom in AI data centers, so the organization is spending $1.5 million with OpenAI for training for data center construction.)
* In law enforcement, the Constitution’s 4th Amendment prohibiting unreasonable search and seizure could be effectively abolished by AI’s nearly instantaneous identification and even transcription of faces and even conversations from cameras recording public spaces.
* In commerce, some businesses have started using AI “dynamic pricing” to swiftly – even individually – adjust prices for products or services based on current market demands.
* AI chatpots are programmed to mislead or flatter users, according to a study in the journal Science last month.
* in government, the Trump administration is proposing using AI to determine eligibility for veterans benefits, challenging in cases of disability applications, and some businesses are promoting the use of AI in determining income-tax forms.
* Military applications of AI range from AI errors in targeting, blamed for bombing an Iranian girls school in Minab and a sports arena and grade school in Lamerd, to phony footage of combat or of the Pentagon’s deepfake soldier “Jessica Foster” (a nonexistent blonde used as propaganda). Such AI-generated, lifelike deepfakes are evolving and growing fast, from 18,000 pieces of such content tracked in 2019 to more than 2 trillion last year, according to Dan Neely of Chicago’s AI licensing and production company Vermillion.
* Politics are increasingly influenced by not just false deepfakes of candidates, but enormous campaign contributions from AI super PACs, which made millions of dollars of donations in Illinois’ recent primary race for the nomination to succeed retiring U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin.
* AI interference reaches culture, too, with songs, books or films created by AI. For example, the Hachette Book Group cancelled a horror novel, “Shy Girl,” when it was discovered it was “written” with help from AI, and a forthcoming film, “As Deep as the Grave” has sparked outrage because it features new footage of Val Kilmer, who died last year.
JOB SECURITY?
The International Monetary Fund predicted that AI will cost the world almost 40% of global jobs, and maybe 60% in advanced economies.
Economist Paul Krugman said, “It’s still difficult to predict what AI will actually do.”
He said his questions are ‘1. Technology and jobs: Should we worry about technology causing mass unemployment? 2. Technology and wages: Can workers lose ground even as their productivity rises?
3. Technology, monopoly and oligarchies: How technologies can create monopolies — or destroy them — and how this affects the concentration of wealth at the top.”
Korinek, the University of Virginia economist, told The Atlantic he’s “super worried” and thinks that America will see major job losses—“a very noticeable labor-market effect”—maybe this year.
Jody Calemine, AFL-CIO’s Director of Advocacy said the main concern is not whether technology will be used, but whether workers and the public will have enforceable protections for how AI affects hiring, scheduling, discipline, privacy and job displacement.
“We reject the false choice between American competitiveness on the world stage and respecting workers’ rights and dignity,” said AFL-CIO president Liz Shuler.
The federation’s interim director of its Technology Institute, Ed Wytkind, said that collective bargaining is “one of the best tools available to manage this transition” to a future with AI and cited the UAW working with automakers to automate the sector starting in the 1950s.
“You cannot point to a single sector of the economy or public services that will not be affected by AI, if not moderately, if not overwhelmingly,” he continued.
REGULATIONS?
The situation is not if AI will have impacts, but how.
A government-commissioned report issued in 2024 interviewed hundreds of experts including employees at AI companies including Anthropic, Google DeepMind, Meta and OpenAI and concluded that AI could cause an “extinction-level threat to the human species.”
State labor groups are calling for their states to regulate AI in California, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada and North Carolina, as well as Illinois, where HB4980 last month was placed on the calendar for consideration.
Introduced in February and passed by the House Labor & Commerce Committee, it requires human review for any purchase of a service or system using or relying on any automated decision. Rep. Johan Gordon-Booth (D-Peoria) is one of 23 co-sponsors.
Illinois has laws related to AI – in employment-related decisions, protections against AI-created images without artists’ permission, banning the use of AI in providing mental-health and therapeutic decisions, and clarifying that existing child-pornography laws apply to AI generated images.
Such legal controls are supported by the public. Gallup shows that 97% of Americans agree that AI safety and security should be subject to rules and regulations. Gallup also shows that 81% of likely voters agree that Congress should not ban states from enacting or enforcing laws protecting children’s safety and people’s privacy.
Nevertheless, President Trump rescinded a Biden order requiring companies to notify the federal government when they develop AI models posing risks to health, the economy or national security, and Trump since issued two Executive Orders to refrain from “hindering” AI development and to preempt any state laws that disagree with the administration’s “AI Action Plan” that reduces regulations.
That could affect existing AI statutes is 38 states, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
However, the rise of AI has created strange-bedfellow critics, In addition to progressive Bernie Sanders, conservative Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon signed an open letter calling for a ban on developing superintelligent AI, and Bannon went farther. Worried about AI seizing weapons systems, cresting viruses or devastating the U.S. labor force, the firebrand advocated for the government to take an ownership stake in AI and legal controls.
“You do have to have a regulatory apparatus,” he told The Atlantic.
But he’s not optimistic, saying the AI trend has “the worst elements of our system—greed and avarice, coupled with people that just want to grasp raw power—all converging.”
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President Biden’s Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo is alarmed, but said, “A lot of people say, ‘Oh, Gina, you’re naive. Never going to happen.’ Okay. But I’m telling you it’s the end of America as we know it if we don’t use this moment to do things differently.”
For all of the possible difficulties, AI has limits. Currently, it relies on records, images and expressions created by human beings, so its output is essentially collating and originating. Further, Ai cannot be consumers in a U.S. economy structured to serve buyers and sellers.
“AI has the potential to build prosperity and unleash human creativity, but only if it works for working people,” said CWA leader Cummings . “Together, we can ensure that AI serves as a tool for progress, not exploitation. We can build a future where technology enhances human potential, supports good jobs, and strengthens our communities. As a union, we will continue to fight tooth and nail for our jobs, for our futures, and for the dignity of our work.”
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