Workers wrested seat at the table on AI this year. Enough?

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2023 saw workers demand more say over how artificial intelligence reshapes their industries, scoring unprecedented wins from Hollywood to Silicon Valley. But as the technology barrels forward and regulators race to keep up, labor experts say it’s an open question how effective the push will prove.

Earlier this month, Microsoft and the AFL-CIO, a coalition of dozens of unions representing 12.5 million people, announced a partnership “to expand workers’ role in the creation of worker-centered design, workforce training and trustworthy AI practices,” as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler described it in a news release.

Workers are pushing to protect their jobs from AI-fueled automation beyond the tech sector, too. In recent months, screenwriters and actors ratified new contracts limiting film and TV studios’ ability to deploy AI to generate scripts or virtual performers — and specifying how to compensate writers and actors when they do.

Those concessions were partly a case of lucky timing, with three major Hollywood unions’ contracts all up for renegotiation just as interest in generative AI exploded across industries. While labor leaders touted their wins as groundbreaking and the contracts were approved by wide margins, the AI provisions didn’t escape criticism.

Some actors had wanted stronger curbs on the use of their likenesses to train AI models. Alex Plank, a SAG-AFTRA member, told NBC News earlier this month that he was disappointed that studios looking to use virtual actors “just have to notify SAG and bargain with the union” over doing so, which he called tantamount to “allowing synthetic performers to compete with human ones.”

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