Statement from AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler following the AFL-CIO Technology Institute’s participation in the Senate’s second AI Insight Forum on innovation today:
Innovation and guardrails to protect workers go hand in hand. Nationwide, on the picket lines and at the bargaining table, working people are fighting back against artificial intelligence and other technology used to eliminate workers or undermine and exploit us. This misuse of AI, left unchecked, will harm millions of people in profound ways. If we fail to involve workers and unions across the entire innovation process, AI will curtail our rights, threaten good jobs and undermine our democracy. But the responsible adoption of AI, properly regulated, has the potential to create opportunity, improve working conditions and build prosperity. In this moment of rapidly accelerating technology development, corporations and government institutions alike must recognize workers for the experts we are—fully integrating our expertise into the design and development of technology, as the labor movement has been doing for years.
Contact: Isabel Aldunate, 202-637-5018