Written by Tilak Chandika, B.A. LL.B. (Hons.) student at National University for Study And Research In Law, Ranchi.
The internet is flooded with the debate whether or not Artificial Intelligence will take our jobs, on one hand the founders of Claude and Anthropic believe that a majority of workforce is going to take the hit and to the contrary many scholars and professionals argue that Ai would merely aid and work like prosthetic. While most of the focus is on how Ai will contribute to job loss, this abstract will explore how changing ecosystem between businesses and technology will continue to evolve to aid to introduce new tools that regulate and adhere to labour laws. The scope of labour laws has been extensive, encompassing every field of employement and job creation. The issue primarily is and has been the enforcement of such laws, which is a hassle for employers. In a nation where corporate professionals such as Narayana Murthy argue for 70 hours work week and the average employee complaints on missing out of work-life balance and extreme rigour, it translates to one thing i.e. need for a watchdog. Artificial Intelligence is the enchilada of everything, this decade has seen so much of its application and penetration into most of the businesses and personal sphere.
The primary nature of enforcement of labour codes and mandates has relied on an outdated and reactive model, a worker experiences irregularity and files a complaint and rest are left to the agency to deal with the issue. This status quo creates an environment where employers grant themselves to treat non-compliance issues as cost of business and there is absolutely nothing one can do about it. Firstly, the compliance hassle for employers i.e. navigating the law and its jurisdiction gives scope for human error and administrative fatigue. Secondly, the culture of overwork i.e. when corporate voices overwhelm it creates a culture of suppression and employees are rarely in a position to risk their career to challenge such structural pressure. The solution for such a setting must be grounded structurally and not to be left at individual level, here’s where evolving Artificial Intelligence tools can be automated into resource planning, communication, project management platforms to enhance security and bypass biasness in the workplace. The advantage of employing these tools is that all the process of governance and surveillance can be reflected in real time and effective decisions are put to effect without deliberate procrastination.
Wage theft and overwork represent broadly the largest economic drains on workers globally and especially in nations like India, there is a need for neutral party to observe, manage and compensate in real time. One such recent innovation is Papaya One by Papaya Global, this tool has all the details of specific employee and their contract details allowing the tool to analyse the terms and conditions of the contracts and apply them to the existing employee productivity and any off the chart infractions. If a remote worker’s schedule is fixed hours, single client exclusivity then the employee is assessed on those terms only and infraction the part of either the employee or the employers will lead to detection in real time and logs it into the company database. Ai blocks the on boarding flow and flags it to fix. Real time visual inspection, periodic manual inspection can be replaced by digital monitoring. One such tech innovation by Assert AI and Avigilon Safety Ecosystems, tracking manual labour is not as easy as tracking corporate desk employees, it requires continuous surveillance and safety protocols at effect, in industrial warehouses and manufacturing plants this specific tool has been deployed using AI video analytics into pre-existing cameras. It is easier for the system to detect missing safety gear, or overlapping or shortage of workers, missing protocols etc. these tools have been tested in nations like UK and Germany and have been perfected overtime using machine learning.
Every log, safety compliance and investigation need not be done manually rather a search engine within the Artificial Intelligence software tool comes into aid, the regulatory authority can query standardized AI compliance logs that highlight anomalies and deviations by reducing cost and time allowing them to allocate their limited human resources high risk tasks. The use of these tools comes with few cautions, it would be dangerously naive to assume such technology as inherently kind because the exact same tools used to monitor compliance can easily be weaponized, leading to hyper surveillance. In automated facilities and gig economy platforms, it is observed that these systems often track workers down to the second, counting “time off task” (TOT) and automatically issuing disciplinary notices or termination letters without human intervention. This optimization for sheer productivity eventually strips workers of their freedom and autonomy, causing psychological stress leading to under utilization of human resource and possible burnout.
It is not safe to leave the control of such tools in the hands of the owners, which might be biased since inception and if the neural principles of AI treat human physical limitations as inefficiencies that must be done with, then it is fundamentally against the principles of labour welfare. For Artificial Intelligence to successfully fulfil its role as a protector of labour rights, the technology must at its core equipped with robust framework of labour welfare and democratic policies. Along with corporate self-regulation it must also be aided with fundamental human insight and governance.
With evolving technology so must the policies and laws adapt, therefore government intervention is a must in mandating a regulatory authority that constantly audits these tools for deviations and possible contamination of their core functioning by inspecting that the primary logic aligns with statutory labour protection laws and does not exhibit prejudice or contaminating the metrics. Human insight must be preserved in core structural operations such as termination, hiring process, disciplinary action and any other regulatory function. The data that AI gathers must be democratised and functioning must be decentralised.
For a labour centric nation like India, it is both advantageous yet tasked with aligning the productivity while adhering to the policies and norms for the welfare of labours. It is only pertinent to employ Artificial Intelligence to regulate and manage day to day surveillance and repetitive tasks in the workflow, several nations have adapted policies that promote and govern such tools while placing adequate restrictions.
The core principles must only aid and flourish the existing productivity and welfare of labour but not hamper in the process, it’s use must not be exclusively as a tool for corporate surveillance and output maximization, that will undoubtedly worsen the crisis of overwork and worker exploitation. Nevertheless, if directed and cautioned with care, AI can become the most prosthetic that the modern workforce has ever witnessed. Embedding labour laws directly into the digital workflows in the firm, repetitive and resource consuming tasks can be replaced with efficient systems. AI can tame the everlasting corporate rigour and optimize the workflow structures that elevate human dignity rather than diminish it.
Caveat: The views, analyses, and information presented in this article are provided in good faith and for general informational purposes only. No representation or warranty, express or implied, is made regarding the accuracy, adequacy, validity, reliability, or completeness of the information. Readers should conduct their own research and seek professional guidance where appropriate. Neither the author nor the publisher shall be held responsible for any loss, liability, or consequence arising from reliance on this content.
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