Artificial intelligence and labour markets: friend or foe?
- Author(s):
- Parliamentary Assembly
- Origin
- Text
adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of
the Assembly, on 22 October 2020 (see Doc. 15159, report of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and
Sustainable Development, rapporteur: Mr Stefan Schennach).See
also Recommendation 2186
(2020).
1. The world of work will be increasingly
exposed to the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Whether
this game-changing innovation will bring new opportunities and benefits,
or harm and disruption, to the way our society organises work depends
on the values and vision pursued through the technology, as well as
how it is regulated and applied. Policy makers at national and European
levels must take a strategic look at the challenges in the making
and propose adequate regulatory options so as to preserve the social
value of work and uphold labour rights enshrined in national, European
and international legal instruments, notably labour codes, the European
Social Charter (ETS Nos. 35 and 163) and the conventions of the
International Labour Organization (ILO).
2. The Parliamentary Assembly notes that AI crystallises fears
that the number of humans replaced in their jobs by AI will exceed
the number of jobs it creates. This generates uncertainty about
AI’s potential impact on whether and how workers will be able to
access the labour market, make a living and have a fulfilling career
in the future. AI used unwisely has the potential to disrupt the
labour market, fragmenting professional lives and exacerbating socio-economic
inequalities. Both commercial and public entities already employ
AI to analyse, predict, reinforce and even control human behaviour.
While AI can assist and facilitate human work and render it more
efficient, it can also have the effect of manipulating human decisions
or decisions affecting humans, violating human dignity, breaching
equal opportunities and perpetuating bias in the context of employment
and access thereto.
3. The Assembly is moreover concerned that AI technology is deployed
on a wide scale without keeping users adequately informed, and without
giving them the choice to refuse such uses, or to seek remedies
when decisions affecting them as workers involve algorithmic decision
making. The Assembly therefore concurs with the recommendations
of the European Commission’s High-Level Expert Group on Artificial
Intelligence that the use of AI for recruitment and in situations
impacting workers’ rights should always be treated as “high risk”
and hence heightened regulatory requirements should apply.
4. Concerned about legal and ethical aspects of AI within the
existing human rights framework, the Assembly welcomes the Council
of Europe’s efforts, in particular through its Ad hoc Committee
on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI), on a comprehensive mapping exercise,
with a view to exploring the feasibility of a standard-setting instrument,
possibly a convention. The Assembly underscores the importance of
the ethical benchmarks so far identified by the international scholarly
community. It is particularly important to ensure substantive human
oversight in the implementation of AI technology that affects labour
markets and individual social rights, seeing as our society is organised
around work.
5. The Assembly thus supports the recommendations of the ILO’s
Global Commission on the Future of Work, which calls for human-centred
strategies to cushion the impact of AI, and urges investment in
people’s skills, lifelong learning (acquiring know-how, reskilling
and upskilling) and institutions for learning, as well as in decent
and sustainable work, in order to ensure “work with freedom, dignity,
economic security and equality” for all.
6. The Assembly believes that member States should better anticipate
the transformative effects of AI on the nature of human work and
devise national strategies to accompany a rights-compliant transition
towards more man–machine types of work, where AI is used as an enabler
for working differently – in new and more flexible ways, to positive
effect. To confront the uncertainties of the future with AI, there
is a need for public policies that tap human potential fully, narrow
the gap between labour market needs and workers’ qualifications and
cultivate essential ethical values, such as inclusiveness and sustainability.
7. Accordingly, the Assembly calls on member States to:
7.1 draft and publish national strategies
for responsible AI use, if they have not yet done so, covering, inter alia challenges for labour
markets, labour rights and skills development;
7.2 ensure sovereign participation in and control of algorithmic
developments, guaranteeing the full respect for existing legal norms
and standards by AI developers and users in the context of employment, and
avoiding regulatory capture by influential AI businesses;
7.3 develop official policies and guidance for AI developers
with a view to putting AI at the service of human needs and well-being,
and not vice versa;
7.4 put in place a requirement for AI developers to always
notify users whenever they are in contact with AI applications,
and guarantee that any use of surveillance techniques at the workplace
is subject to special precautions in terms of consent and privacy
protection;
7.5 design a regulatory framework that promotes complementarity
between AI applications and human work, and ensures proper human
oversight in decision making;
7.6 ensure that algorithms used in the public sphere, such
as in employment services, are understandable, transparent, ethical,
gender sensitive and, as far as possible, certified at European level;
only mature and rights-compliant algorithms should be authorised
for use in the public sphere;
7.7 consider the need for social innovation to accompany the
spread of AI technology in labour markets by:
7.7.1 studying
options for securing a permanently guaranteed basic income floor
“as part of a new social contract between citizens and the State”,
as called for in the Assembly’s
Resolution 2197 (2018) on the case
for a basic citizenship income;
7.7.2 examining “social” taxation options such as a “robot tax”
(so-called “automation tax”), as well as “carbon taxes”, in order
to alleviate the negative impact of automation on human workers and
foster resource-saving rather than labour-saving innovation, thus
helping to address simultaneously climate change and inequalities;
7.8 rethink and adapt national education and training systems
in order to:
7.8.1 introduce “AI literacy” through digital
education programmes for young people and lifelong learning/training
paths for all;
7.8.2 emphasise the differences between human and artificial
intelligence;
7.8.3 develop critical thinking, creativity and emotional intelligence;
7.8.4 introduce the concept of personal training accounts for
all workers, entailing positive obligations for all employers to
set up skills development plans or training;
7.8.5 put more emphasis on a broad range of competences that
preserve employability in the AI era, and ensure certification and
a greater portability of competences;
7.8.6 soften some occupational licensing requirements which
hinder cross-sector and cross-country mobility of professionals;
7.8.7 make proposals for revising Committee of Ministers Recommendation
CM/Rec(2016)3 on human rights and business in order to reflect the
above concerns on the potential effects of AI.
8. The Assembly furthermore encourages the European Committee
of Social Rights to explore the ethical and legal implications of
increasing AI penetration into the delivery of public services,
the functioning of labour markets and social protection.
