Artificial Intelligence at work: questions of law and ethics

摘要

Legislators and regulators are no strangers to the challenges of keeping up with social, economic and technological change. One of the key drivers behind the introduction of the HSW Act more than four decades ago was to create a goal-setting, flexible framework that, unlike the previous prescriptive and piecemeal system, could adapt to new technologies and the changing nature of work. Although that framework has remained robust, the sheer pace of technological innovation in the digitalised economy, particularly that associated with robotics and artificial intelligence (AI), is now raising questions about whether this framework and other civil liability, regulatory and insurance provisions are sufficient to protect people from harm if products and systems powered by these technologies fail or make "poor" decisions. In our series on new technologies, we have looked at how occupational safety and health (OSH) practitioners are exploiting developments in areas such as wearable tech, virtual reality, robotics and AI to reduce workers' exposure to risk (HSBs 479 p.3, 477 p.9, 473 p.3, 471 p.11 and 470 p.7). We have also examined the impact of digitalisation more broadly on the workplace and how this might change OSH management.