The Future of Work Podcast

-Hello, and welcome to this episode of the Future of Work podcast.

I'm Zeina Awad.

A new report from the International Labour Organization

shows how AI,

robots, automation, and virtual reality can all protect workers.

Protect, not replace.

You heard that right.

The report's title is Revolutionizing Health and Safety:

The Role of AI and Digitalization at Work.

With us today is Manal Azzi,

the lead coordinator of the research behind

the report and the ILO's team lead on occupational health and safety policy.

Welcome to the show, Manal.

-Thank you, Zeina.

-Now, the dominant belief is that AI and technology are a threat to work,

that AI will replace workers, not actually protect them.

It does seem counterintuitive.

Can you explain it a bit more?

-Yes, absolutely.

I think with a lot of talk about AI and digitalization these days,

we think that it's negative,

it's taking over our jobs, it's replacing us in certain tasks

and roles, which is a legitimate concern.

It's creating a lot of anxiety in that sense,

especially for workers who are at a certain age and they cannot reskill

and upskill very quickly.

They're afraid for their career growth.

What we're really seeing is that, yes, some jobs are changing,

but the hundreds of millions of jobs are actually being supported and enhanced

with the introduction of artificial intelligence (AI).

Especially when it comes to platform economies and telework

that have been enabled by these technologies.

This has allowed access to the market for people with disabilities,

people with work responsibilities, caregiving responsibilities.

It's allowed for better organization, more flexibility for working hours.

For safety and health, which you mentioned,

obviously, we have seen it as an opportunity.

It's an opportunity to drive better safety and health,

and inform

risks, measures, and controls that we can put in place

that otherwise would have been more difficult

to understand without the help of AI and these technologies.

-Okay, so let's unpack this a little bit more

with my favourite part of the report, which is about robots.

We hear about robots in surgery, robots in hazardous environments.

It seems to be a world of robots that is partaking in the world of work.

How can robots actually help to protect workers?

What does this mean? -Absolutely.

The concept of robots and advanced robotics is really

about either autonomous robots and drones or partial robots

that could be robotic arms that are doing certain functions.

It could also be exoskeletons that we wear that support the body functions

in order to protect from musculoskeletal diseases, or cobots,

so robots that actually work alongside humans.

We've seen in so many different sectors, this is affecting so many sectors,

including, for example,

these robots can work doing the heavy lifting.

They can do all the repetitive tasks that humans don't necessarily want to do.

They can also work in extreme temperatures.

For example, if we're melting metal, normally the operators or the workers

doing that are exposed to sparks and this can cause burning.

This is happening now with robotic arms and then could protect

from this particular risks.

We also see, for example, drones in agriculture.

In agriculture, we spray pesticides.

These are normally highly hazardous pesticides.

To protect workers from toxic exposures, these drones

that are completely autonomous can do this job and save workers.

Like you mentioned, surgeries and robots in health care,

we see that they're more precise.

They're doing now operations that are otherwise done

in traditional methods such as open surgeries.

They can actually remove workload from surgeons

and these healthcare professionals and relieve

some of the also musculoskeletal diseases that surgeons face.

In addition to general healthcare settings,

instead of the healthcare professional taking so much time to note data,

vital signs, and other diagnostic testing, the robots can do that.

Then the healthcare professionals have more time to speak to the patient,

to do more complex tasks, and focus on other more meaningful tasks

rather than doing that.

Indeed, for safety and health,

I think robots

in all their shapes and forms are really playing a crucial role

to remove workers from highly hazardous environments.

Even if we think of the three Ds, the dirty,

dangerous, and demeaning hazardous jobs, robots are taking over these jobs

so that we remove workers from these hazardous exposures

and environments and have the robots do that job.

I think that's a great advancement for safety and health.

-Absolutely. The 3D jobs,

dirty, dangerous, and demeaning, it's not only robots

who are taking over that.

The report also tells us that there's technology that we can wear

to help protect workers.

There's certain types of monitoring and algorithms on the job that actually,

again, protect workers and don't undermine workers.

Tell us a little bit more about these kinds of technologies.

-Yes, absolutely.

We hear about them, but they're actually here.

They're existing in all sorts of sectors for different jobs.

They're basically smart wearables that either can monitor and detect

hazards in real time.

They can also predict what's going to happen.

They understand certain patterns of work and environments.

For example, in the construction industry, we see workers wearing smart bracelets,

smart devices, arm devices that can actually monitor movement.

They can detect if there's about to be a fall from height or if there's

about to be posture problems,

or a general assessment of work environments

that could be very dangerous.

One good feature there is also that they can immediately contact

emergency medical teams to come on site, for example,

if there has been a fall from height, and the outcome for survival

is much higher when we can detect and inform in such speed

the people concerned.

We also see in other personal protective equipment

like in ear personal protective equipment.

These not only protect our ears, but can also start detecting

levels of noise, levels of vibration

that the worker is exposed to and emit an alert to the worker to stop exerting

a certain task.

We've also seen a number of various systems,

namely video systems,

in certain work environments,

and namely for transport workers, those doing deliveries,

those in logistic transport.

Sometimes, they're behind the wheel for long hours driving along the highways.

Having a good video system that is powered by artificial intelligence can detect

when the worker is expressing fatigue, musculoskeletal disorders, et cetera,

and call on rest times and decreasing working hours,

et cetera.

There are so many different ways that some of these smart wearables

are working,

especially in the highly hazardous environments,

even if we talk about mining.

You've got helmets that can actually,

through powered AI systems, can detect the air quality.

For mining, they can detect toxic gases when the worker is actually exposed

in the mining,

and they can call for stopping certain operations,

if that is the case.

You mentioned algorithmic systems, and those really can detect

the worker's pattern.

They can already identify preferences of workers,

working hours also, working times.

There are things that we can include, like gamification,

that can present certain rewards to workers to encourage them to take

breaks, to encourage them to work less, and at the same time be productive while

listening to the needs of the worker.

Not to mention the changes in the teleworking environment,

where platform economies and other forms of jobs also allow

for so much more flexibility due to these AI-powered systems as well.

-Have you ever worn one of these wearable technologies

or met a robot?

-I've met a robot. -How was that?

-There are so many different congresses around the world,

exhibitions for safety and health.

I think a great experience I had last year

at the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia World Congress

on Safety and Health, it was full of robots.

It was based on AI-generated intelligence,

and I actually spoke with the robot.

The robot

was actually detecting everything about me,

from the color of my clothes to my hair, complimenting.

It was actually one of the best experiences

with that robot.

We also saw robots that are actual firefighters,

so they're doing the firefighting, for example,

for workers, and so many different algorithmic systems

that allow to better prevent and detect accidents and diseases.

That's my experience.

-That sounds like a fabulous experience.

On some level, the whole picture that the report paints can come

across as too good to be true.

Is it the complete picture?

Are there some legitimate concerns that we have to take into consideration

when we think about AI and technology and the world of work?

If so, what are they?

-Yes, definitely.

I'm sounding very positive, and it's all definitely not very positive,

but I like this positive spin to say that we can do something

about other issues that could create situations that are risky.

None of these technologies comes without risk,

and there is a lot of concern on, for example,

human-robot interactions.

These are systems that are fully organized through software,

systems that could have glitches, that could fail,

that could have accidents, and the accident can be very detrimental.

If a drone falls on you, it's finished.

It creates extreme injuries in the world of work.

We really need to be careful on how they are designed,

and to not rely on them completely.

One thing that happens, especially with the smart wearables we mentioned,

is that the worker just becomes completely reliant on this.

"It's detecting the hazard. I don't need to think for myself."

We realize some things are not happening in a timely fashion,

there could be mistakes.

These are very short-term procedures.

We need to be thinking of the long term.

The human being at the end is the person who should be leading these processes

and not be at the service of this technology,

but the technology at the service of the worker.

We continue to be vigilant, especially when it comes

to algorithmic management of work,

which can sound great, because it's really adapting itself

to certain patterns of the worker and preferences.

At the same time, this complete monitoring and surveillance can be very invasive

for workers.

If it's not used for the right purpose, to protect safety and health,

sometimes it's used to just push for more productivity,

to push deadlines.

The worker becomes completely enslaved into these systems that are detecting

without actually having to speak or allow the worker

to express more meaningfully

their needs, but just following some sort of pattern that has been set

in advance.

Not to mention, really, the important thing

is actually if these personal protective equipment

or exoskeletons or other

are actually adapted to the needs of the worker.

Are they developed for the certain body dimensions of both men

and women, or of their needs?

If they're not, either they're not going to be worn,

and so they're not really serving their purpose,

or they're going to be worn and create even more ergonomic risks

and other risks for the workers.

-What do we need to do then, Manal?

What do we need to do to ensure that technology and AI are being deployed

for the greater good, are controlled by humans and really do

their job of protecting workers?

-We need to update our regulations and policies accordingly.

We can no longer function in a world where we ignore that these technologies

are being introduced to the world of work.

We need to make sure our safety and health measures,

protocols and policies and regulations take into account robot-human interactions

and regulate that.

We need to make sure that the regulation

of the right to disconnect, for example,

is well expressed and articulated in our legislation.

At the ILO,

for example, we are launching a global discussion on decent work

in the platform economy that's happening in the International Labour Conference,

both this year and next year.

That will come out with some great conclusions

and recommendations.

At the workplace level,

we need to make sure that our management systems,

the safety and health management systems

are in line with these new risks following a hierarchy of control.

We need to not forget that we want to eliminate hazards.

Yes, these can detect hazards,

live with them, predict them, monitor them.

At the end of the day, we want to eliminate hazards where we can,

substitute them where we can.

We still need to follow that.

We also need to make sure that workers at all levels are involved,

either in the design, in the use of these technologies.

They're informed, they understand the capacity and the dimension

and the reason we've introduced these technologies.

That it's not a threat to you as a worker, but actually something

that will help you work better, longer, differently and improve

the quality of your life.

At all levels, we need to have that kind of information.

We need to allow for opportunities for people to reskill and upskill.

We can't have somebody who's towards the end of their career,

say, "Listen, these are three, four technological tools

that you need to now start using."

We need to understand that that comes with proper training,

building the competence and capacity for people to continue to be

in the workforce and to work with alongside some of these technologies.

-Will we get there?

This is the crystal ball question.

If you look into the future, where do you see the future of AI technology

in the world of work?

Will we get to a point where we have

the right regulations in place, the right upskilling

and the right environment to make sure that we're capitalizing on AI

and technology for the greater good of workers?

-I think I'm very hopeful because it's already happening

in lots of parts of the world.

We are seeing that AI and digital devices are being adapted and personalized

more and more for workers' needs and for different sectors,

workplaces, roles and tasks.

We are seeing that positive impact.

We are seeing changes in policies and regulations,

as we would hope.

We are still missing a lot of research.

For example, from a safety and health perspective,

I would want to see more information on how it is really impacting.

Is there a decrease in number of injuries and diseases

because of the introduction of these technologies?

It was very difficult when drafting the report to actually find statistics

and estimates of the prevalence of automation, robotics

and all of these technologies

and then the direct impact and improvement or not

for safety and health

in more global estimate format and not just anecdotal or qualitative data

that we are getting.

It would be interesting to invest more in research.

I think it's always crucial to continue to make sure

that the voices of the social partners and governments,

along with the information we get from academics and from the research field

and other disciplines,

both inform each other

on the way forward.

-We have a lot of work to do.

We have social dialogue that we need to hold,

data that we need to collect.

I'm afraid we have to leave it here.

Thank you so much for being with us today, Manal.

Thank you to our listeners for tuning in today.

Now, you can read the full report, Revolutionizing Health and Safety:

The Role of AI and Digitalization at Work, on our website.

You can also get updates on our work any time of the day

by following our social media channels.

Our handle is @ilo on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter,

X, and TikTok.

Of course, you can find us on our website, ilo.org.

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We have to leave it here.

Once again, thank you for listening to us and speak to you next time.