During the industrial revolution (some people like to split it in two – the British version in mid-18th century and the American version in late 19th century) innovation accelerated sharply, reshaping society and the structure of work. The revolution saw businesses attract workers into cities in order to work in factories, in a mass move from their largely agricultural occupations. This fundamentally changed the landscape of where and how people lived their lives, inside and outside of their occupations. The consequences of this rapid population movement put a strain on city infrastructure creating pollution and sewage issues. The depletion of people from farming also contributed to short-term food resource allocation.
Early in this revolution, businesses ran rampant on conditions of employment. Many workplaces had poor and dangerous conditions, with workers afforded very few rights – long hours, minimal breaks, unsafe conditions, as well as entrenching child labour into the system. This in part saw the rise of the labour movement to push for workers’ rights, among them the enactment of the 8-hour work day across many Western countries. Once the balance of employee and employer powers was established, and societal infrastructure caught up, the majority of people’s standards of living improved continuously until the current day. This was in large part due to the industrial revolution setting the scene for profit-led business structures, along with governments supporting a growth-led economy, leading to continual technological innovation – in particular labour-saving technology and economies of scale – and subsequent increases in wages, decreased costs of products and improved living conditions.
Consistent technological breakthroughs – in recent times these have been the advent of computers, the internet, smart phones, robotic labour etc – have continued to make substantial changes to the way we work and live our lives. Throughout this industrial and technological-driven change there is a consistent theme – government regulation playing catchup to establish, and then constantly needing to re-instate, workers’ rights.
Since the creation of the labour movement, the encroachment on workers’ rights by business has been prescient. We saw this with the introduction of the smart phone. Through this technology workers became contactable 24/7, leading to historically long work hours and destroying the notion of the five day a week, eight-hour day established a century and half earlier. It was not until a decade after the advent of the smart phone that we saw government’s enact restrictions on businesses right to contact their employees outside of work hours.
As well as the need to protect the worker, over the last few decades there has been a push to protect the environment from business practices. And, similar to pushing boundaries on workers rights, business have encroached on environmental legislation through the practice of greenwashing – companies appearing to be environmentally sound when in fact they have continued their environmentally unfriendly practices (mostly due to the cost of compliance).
Another example of technological innovation and government legislation playing catchup is the social media industry. Social media companies have pushed against the boundaries of acceptable behaviour and meaningfully created a highly addictive product. This has become more apparent of late as we learn of the detrimental effect of social media on peoples’ mental health. Once again governments are scrambling to create legislation to curb the behaviour of social media companies, with some governments considering restricting the use of social media for children and adolescents, and others considering banning certain social media companies outright.
Given the historical context of businesses pushing the boundaries of their social licence, legislative catchup is also inevitable with the AI revolution. Now, as with most technologies there has been an initial period of hyperbole on the capability and reach of AI, and it appears that it is still a long way off before AI reaches human-like consciousness. However, AI in the long-term has the potential to have a dramatic impact on the modern workplace. Similar to the disruption of worker movement from farming to factory work, AI has the capability to replace a swathe of white-collar jobs.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t appear to be the capacity, awareness, or requisite acknowledgement of the need to learn from past technologically revolutionary experiences. It appears we are set in a pattern of waiting to see the impact of change, waiting further for the consequences to bring upon a crisis, and then enacting policy to protect and support those effected. This process often takes a decade from when the technology is introduced to the remedial action by government. Given the scale of potential impact AI has on the individual, as well as on a societal level, it would be prudent for governments to get on the front foot for a change.
Shane Stephens 