Artificial intelligence and labour markets: friend or foe
Reply to Recommendation
| Doc. 15325
| 21 June 2021
- Author(s):
- Committee of Ministers
- Origin
- Adopted at the 1407th meeting
of the Ministers’ Deputies (16 June 2021). 2021 - Third part-session
- Reply to Recommendation
- : Recommendation 2186
(2020)
1. The Committee of Ministers has carefully
examined Parliamentary Assembly
Recommendation 2186 (2020) on “Artificial
intelligence and labour markets: friend or foe?”. It has forwarded
it to the European Social Cohesion Platform (PECS), to the Ad hoc
Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI), to the European Committee
of Social Rights (ECSR) and to the Governmental Committee of the
European Social Charter and the European Code of Social Security
for information and possible comments.
2. The Committee of Ministers fully acknowledges the ever-increasing
importance of digital technologies and artificial intelligence (AI),
and for the Council of Europe to take action to protect and promote
human rights in the rapidly changing digital area. It welcomes the
extensive work that the Assembly is carrying out in this field.
3. The Committee of Ministers underlines that AI can have both
a positive and negative impact on social rights, as in many other
areas. It can deliver benefits and promote sustainable change, though
it also raises questions and new challenges from the perspective
of jobs and labour markets, as the use of AI may lead to an increase
in unemployment, lower wages and displacement in certain sectors
and transformation of the labour market as such. It is important
that States promote the use AI and benefit from its contribution
to human well-being and economic and social development, in full
respect of human dignity, equality and non-discrimination and ensuring
the protection of workers.
4. In its recommendation, the Assembly calls on the Committee
of Ministers to launch the preparation of a comprehensive European
legal instrument on AI, which would also cover the need for enhanced
protection of work-related social rights.
5. In this regard, the Committee of Ministers recalls that its
Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (CAHAI) has already
carried out substantive work in view of the possible elaboration
of a legal framework for the development, design and application
of artificial intelligence based on the Council of Europe’s standards on
human rights, democracy and the rule of law. This work will continue
in the coming year. In its work, the CAHAI is also considering the
impact of artificial intelligence in the area of social and economic
rights and has received the various Parliamentary Assembly recommendations
which are of relevance to this issue for due consideration.
6. The Committee of Ministers would also underline that the Revised
European Social Charter, which guarantees a wide and comprehensive
set of labour rights, provides a dynamic framework to address these issues.
7. Finally, the Committee of Ministers would draw attention to
the relevance in this context of its Declaration on the risks of
computer-assisted or artificial-intelligence-enabled decision making
in the field of the social safety net, adopted on 17 March 2021.