The prowess of the ChatGPT chatbot, based on the artificial intelligence (AI) of the OpenAI laboratory, strikes the imagination and forces us to react to this new “shock of the future”. Many already fear that with AI, online identity theft will take on a nightmarish dimension; others wonder, rightly or wrongly, if it will cause massive layoffs in several sectors of the economy.
Instead of teetering between techie bewilderment and techophobe anxiety at these disruptive technological developments, the generation of digital kids should pull themselves together and mobilize to claim new rights to rebuild our future in a “risk society”.
Right to digital integrity
In a world where AI can already be misused to generate false images of you or imitate your voice in three seconds, it is more important than ever to enshrine the “right to digital integrity” in the charter of human rights and freedoms, in order to protect the personal data that is part of our digital lives.
As an extension of the right to life and to physical or moral integrity, this emerging right would be the foundation on which all digital rights could rest (right to connect and disconnect, right to be forgotten , right to AI assistance, etc.) that can be claimed as necessary for our freedom and development in a digitized society.
So that the quasi-constitutional recognition of this fundamental right is not doomed to remain a dead letter in Quebec, Quebec legislators will also have to develop effective regulations to interrupt, or even prohibit, not only the harmful uses of AI, but also the mechanisms fundamentals of the digital “surveillance economy”.
Right to a professional transition project
There does not seem to be a consensus on the following question: will AI ultimately create as many jobs as it will destroy? However, we can anticipate that it will contribute to the current precariousness of jobs and to the widening of the gap between good and bad jobs.
In a post-industrial society where training reinforces employability rather than seniority, it is heartbreaking to see that workers in Quebec must assume alone the heavy responsibility of updating their knowledge and ensuring their career path. They do not have the rights or the appropriate supports to do this effectively.
One of the real social advances in France, as well as in other countries around the world which are experimenting with different means of promoting continuing education, is to have made available to workers paid leave which allows them to be absent from their position to follow a long training course in order to change trades or professions.
By enshrining the “right to a professional transition project” in Quebec labor standards and by establishing a “job guarantee” program, we would achieve a more fluid reorientation towards the jobs of the future.
In addition, we will be able to free up the time necessary to learn about digital citizenship and to tame the robots so that no one is disadvantaged compared to those who have already become masters in the art of charming AI.
Right to free access to essential goods and services
Faced with the possibility, real or imagined, that AI will become the greatest job reaper in history, progressive voices are rising to demand the establishment of a basic income as a solution to technological unemployment.
However, it is important to understand why the techno-feudal overlords of Silicon Valley (Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg and company) also embrace the idea of a basic income that would be paid to every citizen by our national governments.
Far from being motivated by a charitable spirit, this elite of the digital economy rather seeks to keep us in the lives of passive consumers who would not call into question the optimal system of extracting value and concentrating wealth from which this elite is the greatest beneficiary.
As an alternative to basic income, we must instead defend existing freebies and constantly extend the “right to free essential goods and services” (high-speed Internet, university education, banking, dental care, renewable energy, public transport , etc.) in order to lay the foundations for a “fully automated luxury economy”.
In short, progressive voices must lead the way in fighting for the emerging rights that will allow us to better master robotic acceleration and the AI revolution at home.