Trade group calls on AI Summit to ‘urgently confront’ impact on jobs

One of Europe’s biggest trade groups has called on French President Emmanuel Macron and the EU institutions to urgently confront Big Tech’s dominance of artificial intelligence (AI), calling it a threat to work and societies.

Shared exclusively with Euronews Next, the open letter from the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), which represents trade unions and 45 million workers across Europe, was sent to Macron on Monday as world leaders, tech companies and researchers gathered in Paris for the AI Action Summit. 

The statement said that any efforts to ensure AI has “a positive impact on workers in the labour markets, quality jobs, and society will be annulled if AI is monopolised by a handful of tech companies”. 

It warned that tech companies “focus on only their own power and profit cannot align with European values and the interests of European social partners in protecting workers in Europe”.

The ETUC called on governments attending the summit to commit to regulating the use of AI in the workplace, ensure trade unions are better represented at future AI summits and other AI-related intergovernmental meetings, and robustly enforce competition laws such as measures to break up Big Tech. 

Generative AI (GenAI) tools could impact 300 million full-time jobs worldwide, which could lead to “significant disruption” in the job market, according to a 2023 report by Goldman Sachs. 

But this disruption could also bring opportunities, The World Economic Forum’s 2020 Future of Jobs Reports predicted that automation could disrupt 85 million jobs by 2025 but that 97 million new jobs could be created by then. 

Tech leaders also say that AI will have an impact on society.

Millions likely to be displaced by AI

On Sunday, OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman wrote on his blog that: “The historical impact of technological progress suggests that most of the metrics we care about (health outcomes, economic prosperity, etc.) get better on average and over the long-term, but increasing equality does not seem technologically determined and getting this right may require new ideas”.

“In particular, it does seem like the balance of power between capital and labour could easily get messed up, and this may require early intervention,” he added. 

On the main stage of the summit on Monday, Christy Hoffman, the general secretary of UNI Global Union, warned that if workers affected by AI are not involved in talks, inequality could reach an immoral level. 

“We know from history that an inclusive AI transition is possible but far from guaranteed. According to even modest projections, many millions are likely to be displaced by AI over the next five years. And we can’t sweep those people under the rug or watch them fall through the cracks,” Hoffman said.

“We have important choices to make about the kind of future we want, and time is running out. With the right ground rules, set by people-centred policies and hammered out through social dialogue and bargaining, we can rise together,” she added.