Artificial intelligence in the labour market: the future of democracy and the wager of our generation.

Achilles Tsirgis is a Young European Ambassador from Greece, Deputy Coordinator of the EU – Moldova Dialogue Initiative and researcher in the field of public policy with a focus in employment policy.

As a Young European Ambassador present at the European Forum for Young Leaders (EFYL) 2023 in Katowice, in Poland, I had the chance to take part in a very interesting workshop about the future of the job market in relation to Artificial Intelligence (AI) and young people. The panel was structured around three talented young speakers from the entrepreneurship and business sector: Sylwester Zasonski, an eTwinning ambassador with a background in AI technologies, Maciej Malik, president of the Rozdzienski Institute in Katowice, and Radek Czahajda from Kozminski University in Warsaw. 

Since activism and civil society were integral to the topics of EFYL 2023, the panel opened with the very interesting question of how we can facilitate Non-Formal Education (NFE) through AI. Sylwester initiated the dialogue by explaining that AI offers flexibility and allows for tailor-made activities which take into consideration the intersectionality of individuals. Maciej added that audio-visual learning is a field of NFE in which AI can contribute significantly, by provoking interest and unlocking possible new activities to be implemented in Non-Formal Education.  Lastly, Radek acknowledged that AI is not there to replace knowledge, but rather to act as a tool for improved time efficiency: when we save time by having descriptive tasks done easily by AI, we find ourselves with a lot more space to reflect critically on what we learn.

The moderator’s next question, certainly of equal importance, focused on the transition of the labour market to a model of automation, and whether that creates a fear of losing jobs in the current human-centric market. Here, Radek pointed to what I consider to be a very important underlying human condition:  the fear of innovation.  According to him, there are dark clouds of uncertainty around AI, which still remains a mystery to a lot of people. His optimism was in stark contrast to these fears. He noted  that AI is still an embryonic policy area, and there is huge room for regulation. He also expressed confidence in western democracy’s capacity to use AI in accord with fundamental freedoms.

Maciej added that while AI remains an important tool, the most urgent task ahead for AI developers is to guarantee that it remains accessible to people. Lastly, Sylwester summed up with what I consider to be a very important argument. For him, we are only witnessing history repeating itself. He clarified by explaining how at the start of the industrial revolution, workers were scared of machinery, how electricity was considered a deadly power that killed humans, how car drivers were seen as a hazard that disturbed the individuals’ freedom with their noise and pollution. But today’s world without these inventions is unimaginable, and I am confident that we can expect AI to be one of these cases in the future. 

The last question concerned the AI-relevant skills that youth entering the labour market of tomorrow should possess. Here, Maciej highlighted three crucial skills: critical thinking, synthetic imagination, and employing ethical digital literacy. I agree with the points made above and would like to add that these are skills that are highly relevant in an expanding field of infinite (in)digestible information, where automation can either spark our curiosity or kill it by encouraging laziness. 

I also think special attention must be given to the question of the ethics of AI, which are similar in many ways to the ethical issues surrounding internet governance: who is the regulator of the internet, to whom should we give responsibility for policing it, and whose ethical standards should be allowed to prevail?  I believe the answer cannot come from a single actor but should rather be provided by a collective of academics, state officials, the business sector, youth, and representatives of civil society. I believe the question of inclusiveness is essentially a philosophical one.  As Nietzche outlined in ‘Beyond Good and Evil’, different moralities are the products of different socio-cultural backgrounds. As long as regulation of the internet is not determined by interventionism, these different moralities will have to co-exist in an institutional framework based on a syncretic code of conduct.

So what do I make of all of this? In a few words, all I see is an opportunity for a bright future.  Being a firm believer in the innate ability of humanity to evolve through technological progression, I see nothing less than a new industrial revolution. By this, I mean that automation is a process that affects the socioeconomic structure of our society. It only fills me with pleasure to know that our generation will be in the vanguard of it. Let us, the young generation, usher in a new era for humanity, where narrow specialisation and expertise give way to the recreation of the renaissance Homo Universalis: the enlightened human who possesses advanced general knowledge and the capacity for critical thinking. The worker of the future is not the boring technocrat that pessimists from the 1990s imagined. Rather, he is a creature of free will, the designer of humanity’s future. As Pericles notes, it is through philosophy and aesthetic quality that the best of democracies are ruled. AI places the young generation in a position where they can use automation to achieve just that.

Yet, perhaps ironically the transition to automation is not …well… automatic. Thus, I want to end by highlighting the collective responsibility of our youth. In the past, the acquisition of information was part of an automated process by which the individual displayed their credentials to the world. We now have to shift away from this logic and realise the historical responsibility we must all bear to be informed citizens in order to safeguard and facilitate consensual and participatory democracy. As collective incentives are historically undervalued vis-a-vis personal incentives, in a world that increasingly idolises inertia and ignorance, we must rediscover the hero inside us.