The Rise of AI Workers: A Critique on AI Workers and the Future of Employment

Features, Volume 17, Volume 17 / April 1, 2024

Written by French Vivienne T. Templonuevo & Kim Abraham D. Ramos/THE RED CHRONICLES
Layout by Lynden Alyanna M. Valenzuela/THE RED CHRONICLES

Laborers are indispensable agents of the grassroot communities as they cement the baseline pillars and bedrock1 of the Philippine civil society. Workers’ unparalleled labor has been aiding the local communities to thrive in their routinary pursuits and daily activities since time immemorial. From the baristas who brew cups of coffee to the drivers of public utility vehicles who conveniently fetch mass workers along with the studentry, these workers have single-handedly chiseled the collective nation-building and societal progress.2 However, supposing that in a trice, a day would come when the usually manned industries that bolstered the masses have been taken over by unscrupulous artificial intelligence (AI) systems and dubious generative automation schemes. How can one reimagine a society imbued in a dystopian phantasm where the workers are unjustly left behind amid the striking superiority of an unsettling technological progression?

The rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology railroaded a startling shift in the employment paradigm, coupled with its promise of operational efficiency, change and progress.3 An incessant query, however, is posed toward such a staggering technological revamp—change for whom and at what cost? While it is established that the generative AI technology’s unprecedented emergence presented an intricately developed automation for vast exhibits of tasks, data analytics, finance industries, and information technology, it also raises pressing issues of labor displacement, profit-driven media, commercialization and exploitation. 

Plummeting figures of the labor force in the Global North industries drastically arose from the impending threat of the AI Revolution and its looming prevalence over white-collar jobs.4 In the interim, AI automation is not far from the political economy and economic narratives of the third world. Several states in the Global South had already democratized5 and institutionalized AI automation, which culminated in the risks of labor displacement6 in the local industries. As the foregoing tangible issues plainly demonstrate the ensuing threat on the future of the workforce and social legislation, their rampancy calls for the unraveling of the issues of labor welfare and workers’ rights protection amid the ascendance of AI automation.

A Brief Look Back: How AI Automation Transpired

In 1950, Alan Turing introduced Computer Machinery and Intelligence. Such technological headway birthed The Turing Test, which was utilized as a mode to measure a machine’s ‘intelligence’ and its ability to ‘think’. This marked a period of innovation in AI automation. Decades thereafter, the AI Winter transpired, when the dwindling interest and pessimism towards the success of AI development emanated in the public sphere. Despite the debacle from the outpouring of anti-AI sentiments, computerized automation started to develop. In the 21st century, AI capabilities, in the advent of the rapid escalation of the Fourth Industrial Revolution,7 had fully commenced to compete with human faculties in areas of market efficiency, quantum computing,8 e-commerce, logistics and supply chain. Thereafter, then and there transpired the befall of the workforce brought by business and media elites as the latter maximized AI automation and technology in tech-driven industries for profit-based interests and commercialization.9

Media and AI Pandemonium 

The current AI automation fiasco in the Western entertainment industry and journalism interestingly became the penultimate controversies of ethical, political and socio-economic downturn stemming from AI automation and commercialization. Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG AFTRA) organized massive labor strikes10 to champion calls against subhuman wages, massive reduction of compensation, and workers’ rights protection. These stemmed from the iniquitous digital replication clauses and provisions11 in the entertainment contracts plated by the media conglomerates and entertainment elites, which permit the unbridled use of voice syntheses and generative AI replicas of actors without prior consent. In the past year, writers and journalists marked a historical strike organized by the Writers Guild of America12 to combat unlawful wage cuts arising from AI text generation and scriptwriting. 

At the juncture of the AI mayhem in Philippine journalism, the media and entertainment industry have appallingly faced the controversies posed by AI automation. In Philippine journalism, the introduction of AI Sportscasters instantaneously became a public spectacle as it harbored mixed sentiments from mass viewers and journalists. The generative AI and voice syntheses, from which the personification of the AI sportscasters have sprung, immediately prompted queries on the unregulated and unbridled use of AI automation technology in the mass media. Such inquisitive distrust of the public towards the shifting journalism and media landscape was set forth by the blatant commercialization of news.13

Impelled by the extensive proliferation of fake news that challenges journalistic autonomy, the local threat of generative AI-enabled disinformation14 indubitably brews danger in media consumption. Maneuver and propagandization by political conduits are supplanted by AI-powered agents in cascading false news, historical revisionist agenda, crafting online echo chambers and circumnavigating the polarization15 in the local political scene. It is therefore undisputed that the foregoing webs of misinformation, fueled by generative AI automation, undermine the authority and integrity reposed in journalism, news and public affairs.

Job Market Fiasco and Neoliberalism

Earlier this year, western industries and tech companies tremendously put at risk a relatively large figure of 8,000 labor roles and employees, as the latter are subject to plunging job cuts and company restructuring.16 While these international tech giants invest billions of dollars in AI integration and generative automation, the working class pays for its odious price. Percentage reduction in labor wages, budget cuts in workers’ incentives, and impending massive lay-offs17 are imminent socio-economic perils that affect thousands of employees in the Global North. 

Preceding the restructuring in the West international and transnational companies, the conglomerates in the Asia-Pacific and Global South reallocated their capital investments in generative AI innovation by seventy-one percent (71%).18 Amidst the prioritization of AI automation by global capitalists, nine million (9,000,000) jobs have been suffering from wage exploitation, labor retrenchment, and job displacement in Southeast Asia including the country as early as 2016. Studies unveil that fifty-six percent (56%)19 of the salaried workforce in Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia are highly at risk of displacement and termination for the next two decades. These aforementioned sizable data translate to a massive displacement of about 137 million workers, which gravely impacted textile and clothing industries at the height of capitalization of generative AI technology maximized by the US-led transpacific corporations in the third world.20

In relation therefrom, the oppressive dislodging of more than a thousand jobs has been constantly “justified” by the power elite in the guise of technological advancement.21 It thereafter ignited an unyielding critique against the corporate elites and neoliberals. 

As the AI automation developments inevitably fell into the hands of the neoliberals22, there transpired an unsettling threat to the workforce and labor regulations. Sociological vantage points and analyses reveal that the neoliberals enthrall themselves with a “free-market” politico-economic system bolstered by privatization and market deregulation.23 In this wise, the removal of restrictive measures and regulative functions in state policies, buttressed by deregulation of industries, permits an unbridled investment of AI-powered modes of production while compromising jobs at the brink of the latter’s demise.24

The hovering weaponization of AI technology by the neoliberals and global conglomerates indeed pivots to the crucial issue of industries’ deregulation as it led to the displacement of workers within and beyond the third world. Thus, addressing the crux of the labor controversy essentially requires the State to uproot the non-regulative economic models 25 to cater the calls of the masses for workers’ rights protection, and pro-labor policies.

Non-regulation of Generative AI Technology 

The Philippine law couches no specific statute that is specifically regulative of the generative AI automation at the height of market deregulation. While the applicability of Civil Law principles or strict liability doctrine, Data Privacy Act, Consumer Act and Intellectual Property Laws aimed to safeguard data sets and personal information, its pertinence merely submits a scant consideration and application to safeguard workers’ rights.

The National Privacy Commission (NPC) issued Circular No 22-04 in 201126, requiring personal information controllers or processors to register and identify with the Commission the data processing system involved in the automated decision-making or profiling operation. As for the measures protecting AI developers and consumers, the Intellectual Property Code and Consumer Act, the former vests protection on AI developers while the latter blankets consumers against unfair AI trade practices to ensure transparent Generative Artificial Intelligence systems.27

Notwithstanding the foregoing applicability of laws, the workers’ rights and labor safeguards were appallingly left in the dark. In 2023, Surigao Del Norte, Rep. Ace Barbers authored and filed the House Bill No. 7396 or the Artificial Intelligence Development Authority (AIDA) Act.28 The Mindanaoan Solon sought to address the imminent displacement of more than 580,000 workers upon the utilization of AI automation systems in the vast scale of the job market including the BPO (Business Process Outsourcing) industry, retail, transportation, and search engine optimization.29

Withal, the starkly promising House Bill. 7396 is forthwith pending before the Committee on Science and Technology of the House of Representatives since the 6th of March 2023. Ultimately, without the passage and implementation thereof, there remains an extant absence of local regulative measures and social legislation as to the usage of AI in the labor industry and massive labor displacement.30 Thus, the lack thereof grievously undermines the right of the working class to full employment and protection of the labor force from the neoliberal and elite systems of power.

A Call for Social Justice 

In the present socio-economic climate, a plethora of studies admit that the coexistence of AI Automation and the general workforce subsists to increase operational efficiency and systems advancement in industries.31 While AI’s technological progress stands, such spurious progress has left Filipino mass workers in the unending abyss of massive decline in job roles and employment opportunities.

Hence, amid the looming reign of generative AI automation, the collective stance of the working class and unions is to defend the constitutionally vested right to full employment, decent wages, and humane working conditions. In light of the workers’ struggle against profit-driven and unjust industries, the call for social justice echoes from the grassroots mass base of workers. It is therefore crucial to demand state action to cloak and blanket the interest of the labor from the innovation facade-wearing agents of exploitation and injustice.

History witnessed how workers structurized the political and social systems of the State without the aid of unsanctioned AI automation. In the postmodern era where the power elite blatantly weaponized the generative AI systems, the latter’s subsistence attempt to strike down labor forces and employment opportunities. Thus, the State must imperatively enact measures to further set harmonious and humane interlinkage of the workforce and AI automation, and thus to ultimately penalize the profit-driven culprits that armed a volatile technological advancement, who callously violate the labor tenure and unjustly trample on the basic rights of Filipino working class.

  1. “Hau, Caroline S.. “Chapter Three. Rethinking History and “Nation-Building” in the Philippines”. Nation Building: Five Southeast Asian Histories, edited by Wang Gungwu, Singapore: ISEAS Publishing, 2005, pp. 39-68. https://doi.org/10.1355/9789812305503-005 ↩︎
  2. Ibid. ↩︎
  3. Tyson, Laura D., and John Zysman. “Automation, AI & Work.” Daedalus 151, no. 2 (2022): 256–71. https://www.jstor.org/stable/48662040. ↩︎
  4. Cerullo, Megan. “How the AI Revolution Is Different: It Threatens White-Collar Workers.” CBS News, January 24, 2024. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/what-is-generative-ai-job-exposure/. ↩︎
  5. Okolo, Chinasa T. “AI in the Global South: Opportunities and Challenges towards More Inclusive Governance.” Brookings, November 1, 2023. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/ai-in-the-global-south-opportunities-and-challenges-towards-more-inclusive-governance/. ↩︎
  6. Acemoglu, Daron, and Pascual Restrepo. “Automation and New Tasks: How Technology Displaces and Reinstates Labor.” The Journal of Economic Perspectives 33, no. 2 (2019): 3–30. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26621237. ↩︎
  7. Scharre, Paul, Michael C. Horowitz, and Robert O. Work. “The Artificial Intelligence Revolution.” ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: What Every Policymaker Needs to Know. Center for a New American Security, 2018. http://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep20447.4. ↩︎
  8. Campbell, Charlie. “Quantum Computers Could Solve Countless Problems—And Create a Lot of New Ones.” TIME, January 26, 2023. https://time.com/6249784/quantum-computing-revolution/. ↩︎
  9. Ibid. ↩︎
  10. Sanchez, Chelsey. “Everything to Know About the SAG Strike That Shut Down Hollywood.” Harper’s BAZAAR, February 21, 2024. https://www.harpersbazaar.com/culture/politics/a44506329/sag-aftra-actors-strike-hollywood-explained/. ↩︎
  11. Schwartz, Ryan. “TVLine.” TVLine, November 7, 2023. https://tvline.com/news/sag-aftra-strike-update-artificial-intelligence-ai-dead-actors-latest-1235076449/. ↩︎
  12.  Staff, By Los Angeles Times. “Writers’ Strike 2023: Historic Strike Ends, Impacts Hollywood – Los Angeles Times.” Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2023 https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-05-01/writers-strike-what-to-know-wga-guild-hollywood-productions. ↩︎
  13.  “News for Sale: The Corruption and Commercialization of the Philippine Media (Chay Florentino-Hofileña) | Kasarinlan: Philippine Journal of Third World Studies,” n.d. https://journals.upd.edu.ph/index.php/kasarinlan/article/view/482. ↩︎
  14. The Philippine cyber-political divide: Political polarization on Twitter amid 2022 Philippine presidential elections | Facts First PH ↩︎
  15. Brubaker, David R., Everett N. Brubaker, Carolyn E. Yoder, and Teresa J. Haase. When the Center Does Not Hold: Leading in an Age of Polarization. 1517 Media, 2019. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvcb5bsg. ↩︎
  16. Carullo, Megan, Tech companies are slashing thousands of jobs as they pivot toward AI
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tech-layoffs-artificial-intelligence-ai-chatgpt/ ↩︎
  17. Ibid. ↩︎
  18. Gan, Gary, Asia-Pacific emerges as the top destination for expansion as CEOs look to generative AI to drive growth. https://www.ey.com/en_gl/newsroom/2023/11/asia-pacific-emerges-as-the-top-destination-for-expansion-as-ceos-look-to-generative-ai-to-drive-growth-gain-competitive-advantage ↩︎
  19. Millions of SE Asian jobs may be lost to automation in next two decades: ILO. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-southeast-asia-jobs/millions-of-se-asian-jobs-may-be-lost-to-automation-in-next-two-decades-ilo-idUSKCN0ZN0HP/ ↩︎
  20. Ibid. ↩︎
  21. Dafoe, Allan. “On Technological Determinism: A Typology, Scope Conditions, and a Mechanism.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 40, no. 6 (2015): 1047–76. http://www.jstor.org/stable/43671266. ↩︎
  22. Econlib. “Neoliberalism on Trial: Artificial Intelligence and Existential Risk – Econlib,” September 4, 2023. https://www.econlib.org/library/columns/y2023/donwayai.htm. ↩︎
  23. Bailey, Elizabeth E. “Deregulation: Causes and Consequences.” Science 234, no. 4781 (1986): 1211–16. http://www.jstor.org/stable/1698461. ↩︎
  24. Ibid. ↩︎
  25. Ibid. ↩︎
  26.  “Philippines: New NPC Circular on Registration of Data Protection Officers and Data Processing Systems Takes Effect,” n.d. https://insightplus.bakermckenzie.com/bm/data-technology/philippines-new-npc-circular-on-registration-of-data-protection-officers-and-data-processing-systems-takes-effect_1#:~:text=The%20National%20Privacy%20Commission%20(NPC,Data%20Processing%20Systems%20(DPS). ↩︎
  27. “Comparisons  | Global Practice Guides | Chambers and Partners,” n.d. https://practiceguides.chambers.com/practice-guides/comparison/995/10936/17688-17690-17692-17698-17701-17706-17708-17711-17715-17717-17734-17737-17744-17746-17749-17753-17758-17760. ↩︎
  28. House Bill No. 7396, 19th Congress. Retrieved from https://issuances-library.senate.gov.ph/bills/house-bill-no-7396-19th-congress  ↩︎
  29. Article – The Yuan. “Philippines Enacts AI Law in Bid to Harness, Rein in the Tech,” n.d. https://www.the-yuan.com/657/Philippines-enacts-AI-law-in-bid-to-harness-rein-in-the-tech.html. ↩︎
  30. Statista. “Likelihood of Job Loss Due to AI Philippines 2023,” February 5, 2024. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1445983/philippines-opinion-on-job-loss-due-to-ai/#:~:text=Opinion%20on%20likelihood%20of%20job%20loss%20due%20to%20AI%20Philippines%202023&text=According%20to%20a%20survey%20on,this%20was%20unlikely%20to%20happen. ↩︎
  31.  Zirar, Araz, Syed Imran Ali, and Nazrul Islam. “Worker and Workplace Artificial Intelligence (AI) Coexistence: Emerging Themes and Research Agenda.” Technovation, June 1, 2023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.technovation.2023.102747. ↩︎
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