Artificial Intelligence and the Labour Market

Mick Whitley Excerpts

Wednesday 26th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Mick Whitley (Birkenhead) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market.

It is a privilege to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Maria. I am grateful to all hon. Friends and Members who have taken the time to participate in this important debate. It is a particular pleasure to see my hon. Friend the Member for Ellesmere Port and Neston (Justin Madders) in his place. I wish to draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

The rapid advance of artificial intelligence technology poses a severe threat to the labour market and to workers’ rights. The negative effect of AI on the workforce cannot be ignored, as it has the potential to displace jobs, lead to economic inequality and erode the rights of workers. AI has the capability to automate jobs and various industries, which could result in widespread unemployment and exacerbate existing socioeconomic disparities. Low-skilled workers, who are already vulnerable to exploitation, are likely to be the most impacted, leading to a growing divide between the haves and the have-nots.

Furthermore, the implementation of AI in the workplace could result in the violation of workers’ rights such as privacy, autonomy and fair pay. The use of AI to monitor and control workers could lead to increased exploitation, discrimination and the creation of a toxic work environment. If left unchecked, the rise of AI could lead to a future where workers are replaced by machines, and human dignity is sacrificed for the sake of corporate profits. The deployment of AI in the workplace must be accompanied by strong regulations and policies that prioritise the wellbeing and rights of workers.

Governments and companies must take responsibility for the harmful impact of AI on the labour market and take immediate action to prevent its negative effects. Failure to do so would result in an irreparable loss of jobs, economic inequality and a violation of workers’ basic rights.

For Members who have heard me speak before in this House, that introduction must have felt unusually stilted, or perhaps uncharacteristically eloquent. That is because it was written entirely by ChatGPT—one of a number of increasingly sophisticated AI chatbots that have become readily accessible in the past few months. At this point, let me reassure my parliamentary researcher, who is watching this debate, that he does not need to worry about his P45—yet. The unusual distinction of being the first Member of Parliament to openly read AI-generated text into Hansard belongs to the hon. Member for Bosworth (Dr Evans). Like him, I have chosen to turn to one of the most widely used AI-powered technologies to illustrate the rapid advances taking place in the field of artificial intelligence, and the potentially devastating consequences that this could have on workers in every sector of the economy.

Of course, the impacts of this AI revolution will be felt far beyond the labour market. Information is an increasingly valuable commodity; it is also a potential weapon of war. The danger is simple: technologies such as ChatGPT and DALL-E could be used to proliferate dangerous misinformation and subvert our already compromised democracy. We need further and extensive scrutiny of the risks and of the steps that we need to take to better protect our constituents’ data privacy.

I have chosen to use the limited time available today to look at the impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market, and particularly on workers’ rights. That is not only because I have spent my adult life fighting for workers’ rights, but because it is in the labour market that that change is happening most rapidly, and it is in the everyday experience of work that the disruption of AI is being most keenly felt.

We have heard much in recent years about how we stand on the edge of a fourth industrial revolution. That revolution is now well under way; its effects will be profound and far-reaching. Every part of our public life will be transformed. I want to be clear: I am no enemy of progress. We should embrace the potential of AI to change our lives for the better, whether by improving diagnosis and treatment of disease or by driving sustainable economic growth that can benefit us all. Just as the first industrial revolution brought about an era of unprecedented wealth for an elite few but condemned the British working class and colonised people across the world to a life of precarity and poverty, the AI revolution will create again—if we allow it to do so—a world of winners and losers.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making an impressive speech and extremely good points about the welfare of workers. As a union rep, I agree that we must have safeguards around AI developments. Does he agree that in order to make this new technology available to all, we should seek to level up across the UK and ensure that coding opportunities and the jobs of the future are available to young people in all areas, including deprived areas?

[Mick Whitley]

The hon. Member makes a good point. When it comes to AI, all workers need protections.

Research by PricewaterhouseCoopers suggests that AI will be responsible for 46% of the UK’s long-term output growth. It promises job creation in sectors such as health, education, and science and technology. At the same time, it threatens devastating job losses in sectors such as manufacturing, transport and public administration. Some 7% of all UK jobs could be automated away within the next five years, and as many as 30% could disappear within 20 years.

The last time we experienced systemic economic displacement on anything like that scale was during the deindustrialisation of the 1980s and 1990s. The architects of that policy believed that nothing should be done to support those communities that carried the cost of the economic and social fallout, the legacy of which my constituency of Birkenhead continues to live with to this day. They followed the ancient mantra that the strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must. We must not repeat that mistake again. I have called today’s debate to make an urgent plea for a rights-based and people-focused approach to artificial intelligence, and for a process that puts the voices and interests of workers at its heart. In this new machine age, we must assert more than ever the fundamental right of all people to a basic level of economic security and dignity at work.

[Dr Caroline Johnson (Sleaford and North Hykeham) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting point, much of which I support. It is not controversial to suggest that the NHS would benefit from more doctors or that digital tech has the potential to improve people’s lives. The Health and Social Care Committee has been looking at both of those issues. As part of one of its inquiries, the Committee went to San Francisco about a month ago to look at how AI can help in medicine. We found that computers can be taught to read mammograms of breast screening tests. That means that, rather than having to be read by two independent doctors, the mammograms can be read by one doctor and one computer. Apparently, the process is more accurate than one involving two computers or, indeed, two doctors. Therefore, AI has the potential not just to cause the workforce issues raised by the hon. Gentleman, but to benefit areas with workforce shortages.

[Mick Whitley]

I thank the hon. Member for those points. I have already said that we must embrace AI and what it does for us. We are not here to stop progress, but my point is that the Government need to build in regulatory rights and protections.

The benefits of this new technological revolution must be shared by everyone, not just an elite few. I do not claim to have the answers to a challenge of such enormous magnitude—I look forward to hearing hon. Members’ thoughts in a few moments’ time—but a starting point must surely be guaranteeing support to those sectors and communities that will be most affected by the threat and reality of economic displacement. That means strengthening our collective social security net and seriously considering the role that a universal basic income might play in ensuring a decent standard of living in a labour market increasingly characterised by job scarcity. It means investing in skills and lifelong learning, ensuring that workers whose employment is lost to AI have the opportunity to find well-paid and similarly rewarding work.

In any democracy we have to recognise that technology is never ideologically neutral. Every technological system reflects the interests and biases of its creators and funders. Our challenge is to ensure that AI technologies reflect a multiplicity of voices, including those of workers, and not just in their application but in their conception and design as well. I hope we will continue to discuss how we can achieve that.

A people-focused approach to AI must also mean doing more to guarantee the rights of those workers who are already working alongside artificial intelligence and related technologies in their workplace. The AI working group set up by the Trades Union Congress surveyed thousands of workers in producing its report on the worker experience of AI and associated technologies. It shows vividly how workers are increasingly managed by machines, how their rights and autonomy are being steadily eroded, and how automated processes often perpetuate human prejudice when making decisions on employees’ performance, hiring and promotions.

The Government’s response was set out in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology’s recently published AI White Paper, which advocates a light-touch approach and effectively leaves the market to regulate itself. Although Ministers have devised five fundamental principles that should inform the adoption and use of AI in workplaces, they do not intend to place those principles on a statutory footing. Instead, the implementation of those principles will be left to underfunded and overstretched regulators, such as the Information Commissioner’s Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

That contrasts starkly with the models adopted by other developed economies. The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act is likely to be one of the most comprehensive pieces of legislation ever passed on this subject, while California—the very centre of global technology innovation—is preparing to implement measures to protect the privacy and civil liberties of workers. These measures include a new office for AI, with the authority to guide the development of new automated systems, as well as statutory restrictions on the use of automated decision making in the workplace.

The proposal set out by the TUC’s AI manifesto, copies of which I have brought to Westminster Hall for Members today, involves taking a very different position from that taken by the Government. Building on the existing framework of equalities legislation, it calls for a rights-based approach to manage the transition to AI that would strengthen equality protections, guarantee workers the right to human contact and require a human review of high-risk decisions that have been automated, and protect the right to disconnect for all workers. It is also absolutely right to acknowledge the need to listen to workers—their voices and their experiences—in managing this transition. It is essential that we recognise and value the role of trade unions as a vehicle for getting those voices heard.

It is for those reasons that the manifesto proposes a statutory duty for employers to consult trade union representatives before adopting AI and associated technologies. It is also why the manifesto urges employers to agree collective agreements with unions to govern the use of AI in the workplace.

Last December, when I questioned the then Business Secretary—the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps)—on the merits of introducing a statutory duty to consult, he expressed interest and offered to meet me to discuss it further. I think the Minister present today will remember that, and I am interested to hear whether he and the new Business Secretary share the right hon. Gentleman’s interest.

Finally, the manifesto emphasises the fact that workers’ participation can be achieved only if workers understand the processes and technologies at work. In environments in which decisions are increasingly dictated by machines, people need to know, more than ever, what data is being held on them and how it is used.

I am aware that time is short and I look forward to hearing other hon. Members’ contributions. I will conclude my remarks by saying that on 17 May I will introduce a ten-minute Rule Bill that builds on the TUC’s important work and which I hope will bring us a bit closer to the rights-based approach I am advocating and which we urgently need. I ask any colleagues interested in supporting that Bill to speak to me after this debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mick Whitley]

I thank Members for their contributions this afternoon, which were eloquent and well put. It is good that we are bringing this issue to the seat of power—the seat of Government—so that Ministers understand our fears. While we embrace AI, there must be built-in protections for people because not all employers are good employers. There are some bad employers about who will take advantage of AI. We need safeguards for workers and people being replaced by machines. At the end of the day, this issue is coming down our street, so we will need to revisit it again and understand it better.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential impact of artificial intelligence on the labour market.