Exclusive: Inside Google's AI jobs push
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Google is funding new research and skills training programs to help prepare workers for the AI economy, according to an announcement shared first with Axios.
Why it matters: Executives say they want workers to be ready for AI as many of them worry it might take their jobs.
Driving the news: Google is convening government, industry and civil society representatives in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday to discuss AI and the future of work.
- MIT's Ben Armstrong, whose work is backed by Google, recently unveiled research on how companies can use AI to help employees cut down on busywork and support learning and collaboration.
Zoom in: For AI training, the company has three new programs:
- A partnership with the Johnson & Johnson Foundation to equip rural health care providers with tools to minimize time spent on paperwork as the sector faces critical workforce shortages.
- A collaboration with Jobs for the Future to bring together 100 companies to establish new apprenticeships.
- A program with the Manufacturing Institute to train 40,000 workers in AI skills and expand apprenticeships to 15 new regions in the U.S.
Between the lines: Google is looking to define how Washington approaches AI and jobs before policymakers do it for them.
- "AI is not something that is happening to us. It is something that we get to shape," Google's chief economist, Fabien Curto Millet, told Axios, adding that AI's impact on jobs will hinge on what choices companies and governments make today.
- The company has endorsed various bipartisan bills to bolster public-private partnerships for workforce development and get a clearer picture of economic impacts through better data collection.
Yes, but: Those policy ideas may fall short of what unions have in mind for the transition to the AI economy — stronger collective bargaining power and worker protections.
- "For any worker-centered AI strategy, the foundation of that is ensuring that workers can have a union on the job," said AFL-CIO spokesperson Steve Smith. "Because if they don't, they're at the whim of a CEO who may deploy AI in a variety of ways that's harmful to workers."
- The AFL-CIO is exploring legislation that tackles how AI is impacting workers, with an emphasis on state-level action, Smith said.
The bottom line: Policymakers are fielding different views from industry and labor over how to ensure workers reap the benefits of AI.
