AI at Work – Rights, Risks, Opportunities Conference

Welcome/Introductions:
  
Patrick Deane, Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Queen's University

Keynote: Daniel Susskind, Oxford University and King’s College London

Discussant: Cynthia Estlund, Crystal Eastman Professor, New York University School of Law
 

Moderator: Colleen M Flood, Dean, Queen's University, Faculty of Law

Closing remarks: Bob Lemieux, Dean, Queen's University Faculty of Arts and Science

Reception and Keynote: “AI and Work: Will There be Enough Left for Humans?  If Not, What Then?”

New technologies have always provoked panic about workers being replaced by machines. In the past, such fears have been misplaced, and many economists maintain that they remain so today. Yet Daniel Susskind explains why this time really is different. Advances in artificial intelligence mean that all kinds of jobs are increasingly at risk. So how can we all thrive in the future? Susskind reminds us that technological progress could bring about unprecedented prosperity, solving one of mankind's oldest problems: making sure that everyone has enough to live on. The challenge will be to distribute this prosperity fairly, constrain the burgeoning power of Big Tech, and provide meaning in a world where work is no longer the centre of our lives. In this pragmatic and optimistic talk, Daniel Susskind shows us the way.

Panellists: 
Valerio De Stefano, Canada Research Chair in Innovation, Law and Society, Osgoode Hall Law School

Teresa Scassa, Canada Research Chair in Information Law and Policy, University of Ottawa Faculty of Law

AI, Algorithmic Monitoring, and Privacy Protection

AI can be paired with advanced data capture, algorithmic monitoring, and surveillance systems to identify occupational risks, security protocol breaches, productivity and performance trends, and even employee health status. This panel will consider how such uses of AI interact with the contemporary regime of privacy, information and data protection rights, and obligations governing Canadian workplaces. It will provide insights into issues for employers, workers, and policy-makers considering the adequacy and future the legal regime.

AI and Employer Decision Making: Efficiency, Intelligibility, Legality

New applications of AI seek to assist or enhance human resource decision-making across a range of areas including hiring, performance assessment, promotion, and shift scheduling. This panel will consider both the potential for AI to assist and improve such decision-making, and the challenges that it may present from the perspective of its accountability, intelligibility, and non-discrimination requirements. The panel will also consider the extent to which AI-assisted monitoring and decision-making constitutes a form of control for purposes of determining employment status.

AI and Access to Justice at Work

The deployment of AI may enhance the productivity of legal representatives and decision-makers in multiple ways. This could provide opportunities to relieve pressure on workplace legal dispute resolution systems, many of which have been overburdened and backlogged for decades. This panel will consider the potential of AI to improve the efficiency of delivering legal representation and decision-making, and to thereby to improve access to justice for workers and employers.

Work Done with or by AI – Whose Job is It to Make Sure that the Job is Done Right?

The deployment of AI is likely to change how work is done across many sectors, ranging from manufacturing and software development to healthcare and education. How will this affect the ways that employers establish, define, and enforce employee duties of care and competent performance? What will they have to know about AI in order to do this? What will employees be expected to learn?