Artificial intelligence and workforce management: new research report from EU-OSHA organization is published, coauthored with Maria Enrica Virgillito, Associate Professor at Sant'Anna School

A new EU-OSHA discussion paper on the application of artificial intelligence to regulate and manage the workforce, realised by Maria Enrica Virgillito, Associate Professor of Economics at the Sant'Anna School of Advanced Studies, and Jacopo Staccioli (Department of Economic Policy, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Milan), has just been released. The discussion paper is part of the EU Healthy Workplace Campaign “Safe and healthy work in the digital age”.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is shifting the nature of work and work relationships. This paper maps AI-based worker management (AIWM) technologies and their sectoral penetration, through analysis of patent data and content. It puts forward a measurement-based approach that can be used to investigate the impact of AIWM technologies on the workforce, tasks and functions. The findings point to the adverse impact that AIWM can have on workers’ safety and health in terms of control, monitoring, profiling, and more in general techno-stress. Importantly, the research shows only a marginal fraction of patents aimed at improving human wellbeing, underscoring a lack in corporate interest to employ such technologies to improve OSH. On the contrary, the main scopes of application include productivity increases and efficiency gains.

The full report is available here.