On May 22nd, ALLAI President Catelijne Muller had the honour of being invited to deliver a keynote speech on AI: Human-in-Command at the 2019 DigiKongress organised by Ver.di, the German United Services Union. The theme of the 2019 Kongress was Artificial Intelligence: who is in control?

Ver.di takes a forward looking position as regards the impact of AI on work

The progam of the Kongress contained a number of interesting workshops around the impact of AI on work, such as “Decent Work by AI? Risks and opportunities for shaping labour” and “Algorithms – Opportunities and challenges for actors in the field of co-determination”. This shows that Ver.di has taken a forward looking position as regards the impact of AI on work.

Catelijne calls for a right of co-creation

While German workers already have a right of co-determination as regards the implementation of new technologies in the workplace, Catelijne challenged the participants to go a step further and opt for a “right of co-creation in AI”.

Ever since her rapport for the EESC: AI & Society, Catelijne has been calling for co-creation of complementary AI-systems at the workplace, in order to ensure that the systems are useable and that the worker still has sufficient autonomy and control (human-in-command), fulfillment and job satisfaction.