The Treasurer’s highly anticipated economic roundtable is shaping to be a showdown over the future of AI.
Businesses want to limit regulations while unions want workers to determine the rollout and a new government report is fuelling the tension.
“It would diminish the benefits for business and for workers and it would hold back the Australian economy,” Andrew McKellar from the Australian Chamber of Commerce said.
At the treasurer’s economic summit in Canberra next week it could be the virtual elephant in the room.
A new report has found AI is more likely to help workers turbocharge their output, rather than replace them but concedes entry-level roles could be more heavily impacted.
It recommends a government-led centralised rollout that collaborates with workers.
“They know how AI can be used at work most effectively, and importantly, where it’s going to add to the productivity of their work, not where it’s going to take away jobs,” Liam O’Brien from the Australian Council of Trade Unions said.
But not everyone agrees with the sentiment.
“It would give them a right of veto and we think that would be putting too much power into the hands of unions,” McKellar said.
But business groups and unions do agree on other suggestions including a push to upskill workers with an AI crash course and to embed training into university and TAFE qualifications.
It puts unions and employers on a collision course ahead of next week’s round table, which will discuss the role of AI in helping to slash red tape to improve productivity and lift lagging living standards.
“You do not improve living standards, by raising the cost of doing business,” Shadow Treasurer Ted O’Brien said.
