The General Secretary of the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), Esther Lynch, urged this Thursday at the Forum Europa in Brussels to “not be afraid” of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and at the same time legislate to prevent harm from its misuse.
This is what she said at the breakfast briefing organised by New Economy Forum in the EU capital, in which she called for a dialogue about the “challenge” that Artificial Intelligence represents. She considered that science must be welcomed and innovation encouraged, but she stressed that it should not be done naively, but with “moral imagination.”
Along these lines, despite recognising that it can be a help for workers and has many benefits, Lynch called for imagination about “what could go wrong” with AI to prevent it before it happens and establish laws about it. She considered it necessary to ensure that “there is always a human making the decision” because “it will be a catastrophe” if an attempt is made to fix an error after AI has been introduced “in an unfair way.”
On the other hand, Lynch referred to the digital platforms directive and considered it a “step forward.” The directive improves the working conditions of those who work on these platforms to give greater transparency to the algorithms used for human resources management and helps determine the employment status of these workers, which will allow them to benefit from all current labour rights.
Lynch highlighted that it ensures a fair wage and all the social protections that other workers have. She questioned what is good enough and considered that it does not solve all the problems and now “we have to use all the tools available to have legislation implemented” and “encourage workers to join unions” as a way to receive those rights.
Finally, she indicated that “too many rules” are not imposed on digital platforms, but rather a “threshold of decency” for the worker and rejected the idea that Europe competes on price.
The European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC) urges “not to be afraid” of Artificial Intelligence and legislate to prevent its misuse
