Regulation of AI necessary, HUMA committee told

Canada will need to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) to protect workers while at the same time encouraging innovation, members of Parliament were told Wednesday. The House of Commons Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities met to consider the implications of AI on the Canadian labour force. “As AI is increasingly used to automate decisions that have significant impact on people’s lives, health and safety, we recognize that governments have an important role to play in promoting innovation while safeguarding public interest,” Yana Lukasheh, VP of government affairs and business development for SAP Canada Inc. told the panel. Her viewpoint was shared by the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ Quebec section. Danick Soucy, president and political representative of the union’s committee on new technologies, called for new legislation. “We believe it is imperative that action be taken immediately to regulate AI before companies undertake large-scale implementation so that everything possible is done to avoid bringing in systems that cause problems for workers and for society at large,” he said in a translation from the original French. Any such bill should look at the potentials for harm from the new technology, he stated. AI could impact health and safety. Workers could lose their jobs and become fiscally dependent on social programs like employment insurance. Governments would lose money because the employees would no longer be paying income taxes. Lukasheh, who works for a software developer, was more bullish on the prospects for AI. It could remove biases from the hiring process, she asserted. It could also lighten administrative burdens. “The boundless potential of generative AI could bolster Canada's economy by $210 billion, greatly boosting Canadian workers’ productivity,” she predicted. “But it is important that organizations seek experienced industry partners that are equipped to guide operations and organizations through their digital transformations, leveraging technologies like AI to level up the workforce.” David Kiron is editorial director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Sloan Management Review. He appeared as an individual before the committee. He said it is too soon to know whether AI will increase or decrease the number of workers throughout industry. “Although we need policies to address worker displacement from AI-related automation, policy also needs to address AI's influence on a wide range of business activities, including human-machine interactions, surveillance, and the use of external or contingent workers,” he stated. He said studies have found that use of AI actually increases collaboration and cooperation among workers. But surveillance by employers is potentially a great threat, he added. Soucy’s colleague Nathalie Blais, a CUPE research representative, reported that she had recently been to a telecommunications conference where she asked about the reliability of AI. AI developed from internet scrapes could be based on false information, she said. “Everyone kind of tiptoed around the matter,” she recounted in French. She said some telecoms are outsourcing work to other countries where worker protections are not as pronounced as they are in Canada. She pointed to a Quebec firm that is using AI to create subtitles. “Given that it is subtitling, the person was being asked to correct the subtitling that had been created and they thought they were correcting subtitling that had been prepared by a subcontractor,” Blais noted. “Then they realized that they were correcting text that kept getting better and better overall. They understood that they were helping train AI that was taking over.” CUPE’s Soucy stressed the union is not against the advent of AI. “Our objective has never been to oppose technological breakthroughs but rather find ways to adapt to them,” he said in French. “A year ago, rapid advances by ChatGPT surprised the world and even AI specialists.” Lukasheh is co-chair of the AI committee recently established by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The body held its inaugural meeting Wednesday. She reported that it was a great success. There were divergent views on AI regulations being proposed by the government, she noted. –Reporting by Paul Park at ppark@thewirereport.ca and editing by Michael Lee-Murphy.

Regulation of AI necessary, HUMA committee told

News | November 23, 2023

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Regulation of AI necessary, HUMA committee told

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