As artificial intelligence spreads rapidly across America’s economy, there’s a lively debate about how it will transform the future of work. What many people fail to realize is that AI has already changed millions of workers’ jobs – often for the worse.

At Amazon, some warehouse and delivery drivers complain that AI-driven bots have fired them without any human intervention whatsoever. At some companies, surveillance apps track how much time workers spend in trips to the bathroom, with some workers protesting that the time limits are too strict.

Many corporations gather information about their employees through webcams, keyboards, internet activity and phone logs, and that can include private information about workers’ political opinions, sexual orientation, union activity and even their emotions and mental state. Inside many call centers, AI tools monitor the calls that agents make, and based on factors like the agent’s or customer’s tone of voice, those tools often send messages to an agent’s computer, directing them to talk with more empathy or energy.

And then there are the forecasts that AI will wipe out millions of jobs. The McKinsey Global Institute estimates that by 2030, tasks that account for up to 30% of the hours now worked across the US could be automated, and that AI will push 12 million American workers out of their jobs. Goldman Sachs predicts that AI will disrupt 300m jobs worldwide by 2030.

C-suite executives can’t wait to deploy more AI in their offices, warehouses and factories, but many workers, white-collar and blue-collar alike, worry that AI will mean only bad news for them: more stress, surveillance, and speed-ups, and more layoffs, too. It doesn’t have to be that way.

In Germany and several other European countries, workers often have a voice in how their employers roll out and use........

© The Guardian