The working class around the world has and continues to do amazing things. Despite these, it has been workers who have been drafted into and been killed in unjust wars, whose attempts at fighting for better living and working conditions have been brutally put down by governments and business leaders, and whose futures have been treated as cannon fodder in the unfolding ecological crisis. Atlas marks this year’s International Workers' Day–or Labour Day–with both celebration and a commitment to push for the betterment of working individuals and families, especially given the disaster of climate change and the impact artificial intelligence (AI) is and will continue to have on the labour market.
Technological development is only speeding up, and this is especially true in the case of AI. If forty percent of jobs are projected to be replaced by technological change, that amounts to potentially 3.2 billion people worldwide needing to be retrained in other areas of work or risk falling into poverty.
This is why we at Atlas call for popular control over the regulation and development of AI. We believe this can only be done at the global level, via a United Nations (UN) truly empowered and democratized. Our campaign to become the next UN Secretary-General is the first of the steps we propose to make this a reality. Once in office, we will establish a Citizen’s Assembly to oversee the global regulation and development of AI. Further, and with advice from experts, the Assembly will draft a treaty to enshrine rules and values to guide AI regulation, along with its development to ensure it’s possible harms are reduced and its benefits to humanity at large are maximized. Taxing AI companies both at the national and global levels will help provide resources to retrain and provide for those whose jobs are lost due to the altering landscape.
We believe this is a way forward as it pertains to AI and the threat it poses to working people all over the world. We ask that you consider the steps outlined above and join us in helping to continue paving the road our forebears left for us so we may leave it better for our successors.
By Trent Trepanier
Photo: Logitrain