AI systems @ work: a changing psychosocial work environment

The dominant framing of AI systems at work focuses on the opportunities that AI-based technologies offer to improve workplace safety and health. With few exceptions, little is done to map and understand the negative implications of these technologies. Nonetheless, there is a small but growing awareness of the need to critically review whether the preventive approach offered by existing occupational safety and health frameworks is fit for purpose when address ing risks associated with the deployment of AI-based systems in the world of work. The debate on this topic is active at the regulatory level. Various jurisdictions are developing general AI regulations that tend to classify the use of AI-based systems in employment settings as high-risk.

This paper proposes to examine the health impacts of AI, focusing on its effects on mental and social well-being (known in the occupational safety and health discipline as the workplace psychosocial environment). The paper argues that to effectively address psychosocial risks arising from AI-based systems, policymakers should adopt an integrated approach that includes laws and policies on labour and employment, equality and non-discrimination, occupational safety and health, and privacy and data protection.