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The TUC and CBI agree – we need a commission on AI and the world of work

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(Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Last week, the CBI published a report, ‘Disrupting the Future’, which considers how businesses can embrace three rapidly developing technologies that are set to reform industry – Artificial Intelligence (AI), Blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Taken together, these technologies are sometimes known as the ‘fourth industrial revolution’.

The CBI report comes hot on the heels of the TUC’s own ‘Shaping our Digital Future’ report, which covered similar ground. The CBI’s analysis centred on the needs of business, as it should do, while the ours came from the perspective of the workforce.

So what do we agree on? And where are the gaps?

Both the CBI and TUC agree on the transformative potential of these new technologies. Both agree that they are – or at least should be – a force for good.

The CBI focuses on the role of digital technologies in driving productivity in general, and labour productivity in particular, as well as in growing businesses, in terms of both employment and sales. And we highlighted the role of digital breakthroughs in medical diagnostics, as well as in environmental protection.

A big concern for both organisations, however, is the potential digital divide. According to the CBI, a shortage of digital skills and of internal understanding could inhibit the adoption of AI among both ‘pioneers’ and ‘followers’, i.e. early adopters and those who wait for technologies to go mainstream before trying them.

The TUC is concerned that as we plan for the adoption of digital technologies, we must avoid the disruption to jobs and livelihoods, and the rising inequality, that have accompanied technological change in the past.

It’s good that the CBI has focused on the adoption of this technology. Over a third of companies categorise themselves as digital pioneers, while a quarter describe themselves as followers (the other 40 per cent or so are presumably somewhere in between).

How do we persuade more companies to become ‘digital pioneers’?  The CBI report suggests that sharing best practice, developing digital leadership and developing cyber resilience are vital to meeting this challenge.

The CBI is also right to highlight the importance of the workforce developing digital skills. Equipping people with the skills to utilise new technologies is the single most important factor in sharing the benefits of digitalisation.

As the term ‘fourth industrial revolution’ suggests, there have been three similar periods of intense technological disruption before this one. In all three cases, this disruption created more jobs than it displaced, but it created different jobs, requiring different skills.

This is why the TUC’s report called for increased investment in both workforce and out of work training, to bring the UK up to the EU average within five years.

We don’t all need to become tech specialists; cognitive and problem-solving skills are about to become very important too. But we do need to focus on science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), and support more women into STEM occupations and industries.

A separate report in yesterday’s Financial Times (£) noted that while about 30 per cent of Cambridge’s STEM graduates are women, out of all Cambridge STEM graduates, men and women, who go on to start a business, only seven to nine per cent are female.

Most important from a TUC perspective are the effects of digitalisation on those at work. Our report highlighted the German experience, where there is much less fear around the emergence of new technologies than exists elsewhere.

A White Paper, ‘Re-imagining Work’, to which government, business organisations, unions and other interested parties gave evidence, considered fundamental questions such as ‘will digitalisation, as far as possible, enable everyone to have a job in the future?’ and ‘If humans and machines work ever more closely in the future, how can machines help to support and empower people in the way they work?’

These questions set technology as the servant, not the master, of working people. The often-unspoken fear of many when digital technology is discussed – ‘Is a robot about to take my job?’ – is a much smaller part of the conversation when that conversation is focused on how digitalisation can support those in work.

The TUC is calling for a year-long inquiry into the future of work, along the lines of Germany’s White Paper. The CBI supports a joint commission involving businesses, academics, employee representatives and a minister to examine the impact of AI on people and jobs.

Unions are the natural employee representatives to include. We are independent. That means we sometimes ask hard questions. It also means we ask important questions. As I heard an Austrian expert on the fourth industrial revolution say recently, why would a worker be innovative if that innovation will cost him his job?

The Works Council at Airbus in Hamburg has reached an agreement that nobody will lose their jobs as a result of digital technology. Redeploying workers and not replacing those that retire will enable Airbus to meet this commitment. The added prize is that they will get the full commitment of a workforce not living in fear for its future.

The discussion about digital technologies, their benefits and challenges, is set to run and run. It is important that employer and union organisations participate in that discussion and it is heartening that the CBI and TUC are mostly on the same page. But what of government?

Launching his digital strategy earlier this year, the Secretary of State for Business, Greg Clarke said that “investment in robotics and artificial intelligence will help make our economy more competitive, build on our world-leading reputation in these cutting-edge sectors and help us create new products, develop more innovative services and establish better ways of doing business.”

The TUC looks forward to this agenda going forward in the White Paper on Industrial Strategy, which is due imminently. We will be pushing for a commission on the future of work, along the lines of that recommended by the CBI, with full trade union participation.

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