AI: Effects on the Working Class

MU

AI’s effects on workers are mixed. It can make assembly line safer with mechanised arms, lighten housework with robotic vacuums, and improve writing with ChatGPT. However, with all things under capitalism, AI produces profit at the expense of the working class. AI creates environmental hazards and unemployment, with the loss of benefits, by displacing human labour. Forbes reported that AI will replace mid-level engineers who develop software at Meta (Google’s corporation). Tech companies, such as WordPress, IBM, and TikTok, have removed workers to increase productivity. Dell cut 2,500 jobs (10% of its workforce), and Intel cut over 15,000 jobs (15% of its workforce). A Bloomberg survey predicted lay-offs in the hundreds of thousands in the coming years (Forbes).

Other hazards of AI include:

*    Less critical thinking required;
*    Less or no human touch as in computerised translation services in healthcare;
*    Increased risk of war due to demand for rare mineral components and competition for markets.
*    The use of algorithms based on racist biases, such as pulmonary and kidney function tests.
*    Increased anxiety and depression for content managers who read social media all day to identify abusive posts, including pornography and violence.

In addition, inequalities in hiring occur. Highly educated white workers are employed to manage and create products, while less educated black and brown workers are hired for poorly paying data entry and mining. AI engineers and software developers can earn six-digit salaries while miners earn less than $2 a day. These differences increase the racial gaps in income that determine whether one can buy a home and an education to accumulate wealth and comfort.

AI doesn’t only wreak havoc inside offices. Digital products like cell phones use AI software to improve photos and summarize conversations. Smartphone purchases increased from 84% in 2015 to 98% in 2024 (Consumer Affairs). Manufacturers are also applying more sophisticated AI programmes in automobiles, from lane change warnings to driverless taxis (CNET). The increased ownership of digital products requires more minerals like cobalt, lithium, and coltan that are found in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), South America, and South Africa.

“There are several problems in doing this work. First is the dirty water in which we are forced to work. Typhoid fever is common. We also often suffer from stomach pains and get infections, and as soon as we have a small fever, we get tested and find out it's malaria. Women should not be washing these types of minerals because they contain uranium. If uranium enters the body of a pregnant woman, it can cause a miscarriage or the baby to be malformed (Fast Company).”

Beyond harming the workers, AI production causes devastating effects on the environment, including water contamination, air pollution, deforestation, and land denuded of homes and people.

AI requires large server farms of stacks of computers housed in huge warehouses, but called the Cloud. They use enormous amounts of electricity for power and water for cooling.

 “Immense amounts of water are needed to cool the intense heat from the servers. A microchip takes approximately 2,200 gallons of water. Ten to fifty queries on ChatGPT use 500 milliliters of water, and a 100-word email in ChatGPT uses the equivalent of one bottle of water. Ten percent of people using ChatGPT weekly for a year would require the amount of water used by all of Rhode Island for 1.5 days (Green Matters).

A 2019 research study estimated that training a single AI application can emit CO2 that equalled the emissions of five cars over their lifetimes (Technology Review).

As global warming increases, many areas of the world, including the US, are experiencing more severe hurricanes, droughts, and fires. In addition, server farms require large amounts of land which results in the displacement of residents and deforestation, a key cause of epidemics.

The need for energy and water for AI generation leads to conflicts at the community and international levels. Competition among US and Chinese AI companies increases the likelihood of war.

The rivalry between China and the US threatens World War III. It involves the Philippines, a chief site of AI industries. China and the US compete for the Philippines’ material resources and control of its sea routes.

The negative effects of AI and other types of technology under capitalism have led to resistance by workers. Capitalists create and use technology to generate wealth, not to improve people’s lives. That is merely a secondary outcome. Today, corporate elites like Google and Apple have produced services that make life easier but at a cost. To stay competitive, they speed up workers in the call centers and data entry offices and replace people with automated devices.  

Workers have resisted these effects of AI on their working conditions and job security. The International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) demanded a ban on automation used to lift the heavy containers as part of their contract negotiations. ILA members went on strike for three days in October 2024 at 14 ports, demanding no automation. Companies proposed increases in wages in the contracts, but union members stood firm against job-erasing technology.

Other unions like the Writers Guild of America and the Screen Actors Guild struck for 118 days in 2023 for higher residuals and against AI’s use of their images and voices in movies and TV.  Both unions won agreements that “digital replicas” would not be used without performers’ knowledge and consent.

The Philippines is a major site of AI production by companies, such as Meta, Accenture, and Concentrix, which employ 100,000 Philippine workers. Companies deploy AI to organise outsourcing, increase productivity, and improve customer service in the call centres. The Philippines has 1.84 million workers in the outsourcing industry (BPO); two-thirds of the companies already use AI. AI watchdogs estimate that 300,000 BPO workers could lose their jobs in the next five years, and that 100,000 new roles could be created.

Workers formed a coalition named Code AI to demand better working conditions and free speech after an employee was fired for talking about Concentrix.

Nexperia electronics workers in the Philippines won large wage increases after a three-day strike in March 2025.

“There are workers behind every single tool and machine in existence, and it is the responsibility of these workers to recognise their class interests in the global class war. The first step is to withhold their labour from militarised or quasi-militarised technology. For the revolutionary and progressive members of our class who are outside of technical work, we must remember to be in solidarity with one another and support our fellow workers” (Workers).

Workers have the clout to abolish the negative effects of AI. They can refuse to speed up production, surveillance, and displacement while demanding benefits like higher wages, a shorter work week, and safer conditions. The working class has the power to end the use of fossil fuels and the wars in pursuit of them. These goals require a system run by workers; capitalism will never relinquish its domination and exploitation of workers without a revolution. It is time to consider how to build international solidarity to achieve this.

Technology under capitalism enriches the rich and impoverishes the rest of the society, either by displacement by automation, high costs of digital products, or lack of access to high-speed Internet. In this society, every necessity is turned into a commodity, from electricity and cell phones to healthcare and food. If the working class had control over technology, they could design systems determined by need instead of profit and exploitation.

Instead of discarding workers without a safety net, AI can reduce work time to free workers to improve their lives. More time allows people to socialise, deepen relationships, engage in the arts, study, and play sports. A society without profit can reduce dangerous protocols in manufacturing, abolish borders to eliminate competition between countries.  It could evaluate the best uses of technology.

[Source: multiracial unity.org]

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Frontier
Vol 57, No. 46, May 11 - 17, 2025