Workers across the US have had it with the prognostications of AI taking over the world. And their unions — or what’s left of them, anyway — are taking notice.
Last week, the leaders of some of the largest trade unions in the US came together for a conference with Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, Axios reports. Together, they presented a united opposition against tech companies pushing AI and robotics into labor, renewing Sanders’ call for a pause on AI development until there are ample safety nets in place to catch workers whom labor leaders fear will be displaced.
“We are here to sound the alarms on AI,” president of stories AFL-CIO Liz Shuler said at the press conference. “This race that everybody seems to think we’re in to advance AI at all costs — with no guardrails or protections for people — is reckless and dangerous.”
The horse race for AI dominance between tech companies in the US has had ripple effects for workers throughout the country. Though researchers haven’t reached consensus on whether AI is actually replacing jobs, workers are still feeling the squeeze as AI-happy executives institute layoffs and hiring freezes regardless, as if to declare that the AI revolution is right around the corner.
“Human beings have to come first in this equation, not an afterthought,” United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain said. “A handful of billionaires want all the profits,” but the “working class has to get our fair share.”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers — which, it should be noted, received $23 million in funding from AI companies Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic — called for the federal government to put people ahead before tech. “We need the Congress, we need this administration to actually put people first, to make sure that the human being is in charge of society, not a robot and not a chatbot,” she said.
Sanders, who recently proposed legislation to halt data center construction throughout the US, also unloaded some scathing comments.
“The richest people on Earth — Mr. Musk, Mr. Zuckerberg, Mr. Bezos, Mr. Ellison and others — what they want to do is replace human workers,” Sanders told attendees. “Some of us are old-fashioned, and we believe in human beings.”