The DOL released a best practices guide for employers on “Artificial Intelligence and Worker Well-being”

Last year, the EEOC published a resource to help employers avoid bias claims from using artificial intelligence. Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Labor released its AI Principles and Best Practices guidance for employers and developers.

Now indulge me as I quote liberally from the DOL press release:

The Department’s AI Principles for Developers and Employers include:

• [North Star] Centering Worker Empowerment: Workers and their representatives, especially those from underserved communities, should be informed of and have genuine input in the design, development, testing, training, use, and oversight of AI systems for use in the workplace.
• Ethically Developing AI: AI systems should be designed, developed, and trained in a way that protects workers.
• Establishing AI Governance and Human Oversight: Organizations should have clear governance systems, procedures, human oversight, and evaluation processes for AI systems for use in the workplace.
• Ensuring Transparency in AI Use: Employers should be transparent with workers and job seekers about the AI systems that are being used in the workplace.
• Protecting Labor and Employment Rights: AI systems should not violate or undermine workers’ right to organize, health and safety rights, wage and hour rights, and anti-discrimination and anti-retaliation protections.
• Using AI to Enable Workers: AI systems should assist, complement, and enable workers, and improve job quality.
• Supporting Workers Impacted by AI: Employers should support or upskill workers during job transitions related to AI.
• Ensuring Responsible Use of Worker Data: Workers’ data collected, used, or created by AI systems should be limited in scope and location, used only to support legitimate business aims, and protected and handled responsibly.

You’ll have to excuse me. I read the DOL’s guidance last night on the tail end of a food coma after attending a soup dumpling class with my son, where we made up for our lack of culinary skills by consuming way too many of our odd-shaped efforts at Shanghainese cuisine.

Still, I managed to digest a few takeaways:

1. Train a broad range of employees on the responsible use of artificial intelligence.
2. Companies should maintain human oversight over AI systems and regularly audit the technology.
3. Do not use AI to chill employees’ labor rights; reduce wages, break time, or benefits workers are legally due; or discriminate against any protected classes. Conversely, “affirmatively encourage workers to raise concerns, individually or collectively, about the use and impact of AI, algorithmic management or electronic monitoring.”
4. Ultimately, “as organizations weigh whether and how to adopt AI technologies, they should consider what systems will best assist their current workforce.”