Government releases AI workplace guide, warning of surveillance and heavier workloads

Workplace Relations Minister Amanda Rishworth has launched a best practice guide for employers on adopting artificial intelligence at work. The guide says wider use of AI could improve business productivity, the quality of services and profitability.

It also says AI could raise wages, allow shorter and more flexible working hours, or give employees more meaningful work. The guide does not present these outcomes as certain, and it sets them against a list of possible hazards. Those include intrusive surveillance of workers, poor rostering practices, performance standards that are intensified or unrealistic, and potential discrimination.

The guide cautions that younger workers, older workers and First Nations workers, along with women and people with a disability, could be affected disproportionately. Ministers' Department of Employment and Workplace Relations material accompanies the release.

Rishworth said employers must give workers a clear plan on how automation could affect their jobs, and the opportunity to move into new roles.

Speaking at a business forum in Sydney, she said firms that add AI without properly consulting their workers could increase workloads. Consultation is the process of talking with staff and their representatives before changes are made.

The guide's warnings come as Parliament continues to examine the technology's effects. At a parliamentary hearing looking at the big four banks, the country's four largest lenders, former industry minister Ed Husic questioned who receives the benefits of higher AI productivity.