Senate Spotlights AI Regulation, Potential Job Displacement

The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee (HELP) held a hearing this week examining the benefits and challenges associated with increasing integration of AI, and potential areas for regulation. Meanwhile, Ranking Member Bernie Sanders (I-VT) released a report claiming that AI could eliminate nearly 100 million U.S. jobs within a decade.

Committee hearing on AI: The HELP Committee held a hearing entitled “AI's Potential to Support Patients, Workers, Children, and Families”, with a focus on both the potential benefits of AI and the challenges it poses for American workers and younger generations.

• “We need to make sure Americans are trained with tools to stay competitive in a 21^st century environment,” said Chair Cassidy (R-LA). Ranking Member Sanders called AI “one of the most challenging issues facing this country” while warning about its potential to destroy millions of American jobs.

• Republicans and Democrats alike expressed concerns over safety and privacy issues associated with AI and chat bots, particularly for underage Americans, but differed over how to properly regulate the fast-growing and fast-changing technology.

  • Democrats expressed the need to protect workers from being left behind, while Republicans emphasized the importance of fostering innovation.

  • Republicans and Democrats also differed over whether government use of AI itself can play a role in regulating the technology.

“Tremendous uncertainty:” Sen. Sanders’ report, “The Big Tech Oligarchs’ War Against Workers” examines AI primarily through the lens of how it may impact labor and the workplace. The report claims that AI and automation “could destroy nearly 100 million U.S. jobs in a decade,” citing a ChatGPT-based model.

• The report also uses quotes and predictions from major business leaders and AI innovators themselves to demonstrate potential job loss, including the prediction from OpenAI CEO Dario Amodei that around half of all entry-level white-collar jobs will be replaced by AI within five years.

• Sanders also highlights the public statements and initiatives from major companies through which companies detail their plans to cut their workforces in favor of AI or automation.

• The report makes several policy recommendations to protect workers amidst AI integration, including:

  • 32-hour workweeks with no loss in pay;

  • Employee profit-sharing;

  • Employee representation on corporate boards;

  • Taxes for use of robot workers;

  • Doubling union membership; and

  • Guaranteeing paid family and medical leave.

Same song, different tune: Sen. Sanders’ arguments regarding increased productivity contrasted with lagging pay, declining union membership, and increasing wealth inequality are not new. Nor are most of his recommended solutions, such as passing pro-worker or pro-union labor and employment law reforms.

Why it matters: The future of AI regulation may include several long-held, potentially unrelated goals of policymakers, such as mandatory paid leave and stronger protections for workers’ concerted activity.

Employer takeaways:

• Congress remains primarily in a fact-finding mode regarding AI regulation, and comprehensive laws are unlikely to be passed in the immediate future—particularly those with a workplace focus.

• Nevertheless, the demand for regulatory frameworks will only increase as AI is further integrated into the economy and begins to displace workers on a larger scale.

• Expect both Democrats and Republicans to use AI regulation to attempt to force through other long-term policy goals.