AI could have damaging effect on our mental health, researcher reveals

Though helpful in its own way, artificial intelligence represents a clear and present danger to the livelihood and health of hundreds of millions of working people and their families, research reveals.

Dr. Alan Bernstein, chief executive officer of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR), says that artificial intelligence will challenge cherished views of what it means to be human and will certainly challenge our sense of economic security.

According to Dr Bernstein, unless employers and governments prepare for this revolution by retraining workers, creating replacement jobs that demand distinctly human traits and forging new education and career models, social unrest and alienation will intensify in a world already fractured by income inequality.

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To that end, Canadian firm, the Brookings Institution is calling for the advancement of a constant-learning mindset, giving incumbent workers new skills, fostering employment opportunities that demand uniquely human qualities and focusing artificial intelligence on taking over specific tasks, not whole jobs.

“Almost no occupation will be unaffected by technological change in the artificial intelligence era,” Brookings says, “and some of the most vulnerable jobs will be in office administration, production, transportation and food preparation.”

Brookings added that humanization of the artificial intelligence workplace should start now with the introduction of workplace protocols or standards − mandated by law, if necessary − to establish the values that will govern entry of artificial intelligence into the workplace, assess the threats to those values and take steps necessary to neutralize those threats.

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