TUC launches AI taskforce for workers’ rights and societal benefit

The Trades Union Congress has launched an AI “taskforce” and is asking for new legal guidelines to safeguard employees’ rights and make sure the know-how has broad social advantages.

The taskforce, which the TUC mentioned will corral specialists in regulation, know-how, politics, HR and the voluntary sector, will publish an AI and Employment Bill early in 2024. It will then foyer to have the invoice integrated into UK regulation.

The invoice shall be drafted by employment legal professionals Robin Allen KC and Dee Masters from the AI Law Consultancy, with help from Cloisters barristers’ chambers.

The taskforce has already acknowledged that AI is making “high-risk, life-changing” choices about employees’ lives – equivalent to line-managing, hiring and firing employees. It can be getting used to analyse facial expressions, tone of voice and accents to evaluate candidates’ suitability for roles.

Left unchecked, this might result in higher discrimination, unfairness and exploitation at work throughout the economic system, the taskforce is warning.

The TUC mentioned the UK dangers turn out to be an “international outlier” on the regulation of AI. While the EU has already drafted particular laws to control AI at work, the UK’s authorities’s place is for a “light touch” strategy.

It added that authorities ministers have didn’t put in place the required “guardrails” to guard employees’ rights, with March’s AI whitepaper proposing solely a principles-based strategy that lacks statutory drive.

The TUC is asking for a authorized obligation on employers to seek the advice of commerce unions on using “high risk” and intrusive types of AI within the office, and for a authorized proper for all employees to have a human overview of choices made by AI techniques to allow them to problem choices which can be unfair and discriminatory.

It can be demanding amendments to the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR) and Equality Act to protect towards discriminatory algorithms.

The TUC will spearhead the taskforce and draw on the help of an advisory committee that can embrace individuals from Tech UK, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD), the University of Oxford, the British Computer Society, CWU, GMB, USDAW, Community, Prospect, and the Ada Lovelace Institute.

Chairing of the committee will lie between TUC assistant normal secretary Kate Bell and government director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy on the University of Cambridge Gina Neff.

Bell mentioned: “AI is already making life-changing choices about the way in which hundreds of thousands work – together with how individuals are employed, performance-managed and fired. But UK employment regulation is manner behind the curve – leaving many employees susceptible to exploitation and discrimination.

“We urgently need new employment legislation, so workers and employers know where they stand. Without proper regulation of AI, our labour market risks turning into the Wild West. We all have a shared interest in getting this right.”

Neff added: “Responsible and reliable AI can energy big advantages. But legal guidelines should be match for objective and make sure that AI works for all.

“AI safety isn’t just a challenge for the future and it isn’t just a technical problem. These are issues that both employers and workers are facing now, and they need the help from researchers, policy-makers and civil society to build the capacity to get this right for society.”

MPs David Davis (Conservative), Darren Jones (Labour), Mick Whitley (Labour), and Chris Stephens (SNP) may even sit on the committee.

The taskforce mentioned it is important that employees’ teams and the broader voluntary sector are invited to attend the worldwide summit on AI being hosted at Bletchley Park this 12 months by Rishi Sunak, alongside enterprise teams and employers.