US Union Leader Tells Davos Elites 'You're Gonna Have a Revolution' If AI Wipes Out Jobs
The president of the AFL-CIO warned of a large-scale revolt if corporate leaders use artificial intelligence to "put people out on the street with no path forward."
The leader of the AFL-CIO, the largest union federation in the United States, told elites and others gathered at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Wednesday that rapid advances in artificial intelligence risk turbocharging the worst inequities of the existing economic order, displacing workers en masse while enriching those at the very top.
Liz Shuler, the AFL-CIO's president, said during a panel discussion that if the billionaires and corporate titans currently directing AI developments are "looking to just deskill, dehumanize, replace workers" and "put people out on the street with no path forward—then absolutely you’re gonna have a revolution."
The economy in the US and around the world "isn't working for working people now," Shuler noted, citing unprecedented levels of inequality, workers being forced to take on multiple jobs to make ends meet, and widespread economic instability.
“Now, put AI on top of that," she continued. "The insecurity that we’re all experiencing—the fact that people are waking up and some new technology is landing on them in their jobs, without training, without them having a say. Of course they’re going to be anxious, of course they're going to be feeling insecure about what the future holds."
“I think we really need to stop, and say: ‘Who are we doing this for, what are the results we want, and how we get there?’" said Shuler. "We get there by including workers in the process."
The International Monetary Fund has estimated that roughly 40% of global employment is "exposed to AI." In advanced economies, according to the analysis, around 60% of jobs could be impacted by AI, either positively or negatively—with some jobs expected to disappear entirely.
Multinational corporate behemoths such as Amazon are actively planning to replace many of their workers with robots, efforts that have sparked the kinds of dire warnings that Shuler expressed at Davos, where AI is a centerpiece of this year's gathering.
In a letter to Amazon's billionaire founder, Jeff Bezos, late last year, US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) asked, "Are you going to simply dump these workers out on the street, or will you treat them with the dignity they deserve?"
"If Amazon succeeds on its massive automation plan," Sanders warned, "it will have a profound impact on blue-collar workers throughout America and will likely be used as a model by large corporations throughout America, including Walmart and UPS, to displace tens of millions of jobs.”
