The Left-wing Guardian has detailed how at present AI is being used to make workplaces even more miserable than usual. Staff may be fired without human intervention, solely by the action of algorithms; toilet breaks are monitored; performances are monitored, recorded and graded, and overall, the workplaces are being transformed into something out of 1984. Amanda Ballantyne, director of the AFL-CIO’s technology institute, has noted: “In sectors where performance monitoring and algorithmic management are present, you can have a lot of negative impact.” “If you dive into a sector like Amazon, many workers wear wearables that track every movement their body makes, everywhere they go, how fast they complete tasks, how long they’re off task, how long they take in the bathroom. It’s [scientific management] on steroids.”
Unions in Europe are fighting to oppose the dire consequences of such technology, which can lead to unfair pay cuts and firings, but less progress has been made in the US and Australia. This is fair enough, but it is all a thin edge of a very thick wedge, since the aim of the technocrats will be replacement of as many jobs as possible by advanced AI, even for humble things like the fast food industry. See extract number two below about the development of robots that can look and learn human jobs, then replace the humans.