Artificial intelligence and human rights at work

Abstract

While debates surrounding the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the ‘future of work’ have largely focused on automation of production processes and job destruction, it is increasingly clear that it is the use of AI to manage and govern the workplace that presents the more immediate challenge. This chapter argues that employers’ use of AI in algorithmic management and workplace surveillance technologies poses a significant and pervasive threat to human rights at work, one that is not confined to the rights of privacy and equality concerns that have so far dominated scholarly attention. The chapter sets out the ways in which technology is being used to undertake or augment managerial functions at all stages of the employment relationship and illustrates how these algorithmic management practices present a risk to a wide range of workers’ human rights. In addition to privacy and non-discrimination rights, this includes freedom of association and expression, due process rights, and the right to decent working conditions. The chapter then argues that ex ante forms of regulation are necessary to address the risk that AI poses to human rights at work and identifies and assesses two such frameworks that can be used to help secure human rights in this context, namely human rights impact assessments and collective bargaining over the use of technology in the workplace.

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ORCID for Joe Atkinson: orcid.org/0000-0001-5207-2231

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