Responding to the challenge of AI: Retrieving human intelligence through labour

The discussion in this seminar will contend that both the exaggerated fascination and fear toward artificial intelligence (AI) are based on an improper understanding of human intelligence, which fails to retrieve its full potential. It will warn that the current excitement on AI often disregards a concomitant dehumanization of our very intelligence. Taking labour as a key arena where the future of our intelligence is fashioned, the researchers will argue that there is a need for a much richer view of human intelligence, highlighting its constitutive powers and dimensions, as well as the often-forgotten limitations of AI. The argument that will be put forward is that it is important to seize this historic transitional moment and its myriad challenges as an opportunity to cultivate at the workplace the intrinsically human dimensions of intelligence, which not only remain largely untapped but are also essential to humanize labour.

Jordi Agustí-Panareda is a lawyer, socio-legal researcher, and senior official at the International Labour Organization, where he currently serves as Ethics Officer. He has previously led the Freedom of Association Branch in the International Labour Standards Department and served as Senior Legal Officer at the Office of the Legal Advisor, following earlier roles at Sullivan & Cromwell in New York and the World Bank’s Legal Vice-Presidency. He holds an LL.M. from the London School of Economics and a Master’s and Doctorate in the Science of Law from Stanford University, with interests spanning international labour standards, international organizations, conflict management, and socio-legal research.

Jaume Agustí-Cullell (Doctor in Physics from Paris-Sud University) is a retired AI researcher and co-founder of the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute (IIIA-CSIC). His work has explored knowledge representation, logic, reasoning, and the ethics of AI, and in recent years he has emphasized the creative, ethical, and societal dimensions of human intelligence.

Uma Rani is Senior Economist at the Research Department of the International Labour Office (ILO) in Geneva and joined the organisation in 2008. Prior to joining the ILO she held the position of Associate Professor at Gujarat Institute of Development Research, Ahmedabad, India. She has held Visiting Fellow positions at Institute of Developing Economies in Japan; Gokhale Institute of Politics and Economics in India; ETH-NADEL in Zürich and Institut de Recherche pour le Developpement in Paris. Her research expertise is in the areas of informal economy, minimum wages, poverty and inequality, with a specific focus on gender. Since 2016, she has been working on digital transformations in the world of work, exploring ways to strengthen labour and social institutions to address economic and social inequality.

Between 2017 and 2019, she was part of the ILO Technical Secretariat for the Commission on Future of Work. She is a board member of the Women in Informal Employment Globalising and Organising (WIEGO) network. She is also actively involved in the Conference Organising Committee of the Regulating for Decent work (RDW) Conference, a biennial event organised by the ILO in collaboration with academic institutions.