As artificial intelligence (AI) transforms workplaces around the world, questions about how to ensure its fair and responsible use are becoming increasingly urgent. A new working paper from the International Labour Organization (ILO) highlights how international labour standards provide an important foundation for addressing these challenges.
The paper, AI Ethics and the ILO's international labour standards system: exploring synergies, by ILO researchers Jordi Agustí-Panareda and Daniel Samaan, examines how widely recognized principles of AI ethics relate to the values, principles and rights underpinning the ILO's international labour standards system.
While numerous AI ethics guidelines have emerged in recent years, many remain broad and voluntary, offering limited guidance on how AI should be governed in specific workplace situations.
The study finds that the ILO's longstanding framework of international labour standards offers a central reference point for on how AI ethical principles can be brought to bear in concrete situations arising in the world of work.
Where AI ethics and labour standards meet
The researchers compare five widely recognized AI ethics principles - justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and explicability - with the ethical foundations of the ILO's normative framework.
They identify significant areas of convergence, particularly around fairness, human dignity, well-being and the prevention of harm.
However, the analysis also reveals differences. While AI ethics frameworks tend to emphasize individual autonomy, privacy and transparency, the ILO's normative framework further draws our attention to important collective dimensions and rights, including freedom of association, collective bargaining and social dialogue.
These collective dimensions, the paper notes, are often missing from mainstream discussions of AI ethics, despite their importance for determining how new technologies are introduced and governed at work.
New challenges for workers' rights?
The paper also examines how AI is raising questions that may require renewed attention in the application of international labour standards.
These include the collection and use of workers' personal data, algorithmic management, workplace surveillance and the transparency of AI-assisted employment decisions.
For example, when AI systems are used to screen job applicants or evaluate workers' performance, understanding how decisions are made and which kind of data have been used, becomes essential to ensuring accountability and a fair process that is in accordance with international labour standards.
The authors suggest that AI ethics and international labour standards can reinforce one another: established labour rights can help shape the discussion on the governance of AI in workplaces, while emerging AI ethical principles, and the concerns they point at, can inform and contribute to the application of labour standards as technologies evolve.
Towards a human-centred approach to AI governance
The findings highlight the potential contribution of the ILO's international labour standards system and tripartite structure to ongoing debates on AI governance.
By bringing together governments, employers and workers, the ILO provides a framework for considering not only the technical and individual dimensions of ethical AI, but also its implications for working conditions, collective representation and social justice.
The authors call for further research and dialogue on how AI ethics and international labour standards can work together to support a human-centred approach to technological change at work.
