Working with AI with Matthew Scherer

Matthew Scherer makes the case for bottom-up AI adoption, being OK with not using AI, innovation as a relative good, and transparently safeguarding workers’ rights. 

Matthew champions a worker-led approach to AI adoption in the workplace. He traverses the slippery slope from safety to surveillance and guards against unnecessarily intrusive solutions. 

Matthew then illustrates why AI isn’t great at making employment decisions; even in objectively data rich environments such as the NBA. He also addresses the intractable problem of bias in hiring and flawed comparisons between humans and AI. We discuss the unquantifiable dynamics of human interactions and being OK with our inability to automate hiring and firing. 

Matthew explains how the patchwork of emerging privacy regulations reflects cultural norms towards workers. He invokes the Ford Pinto and the Titan submersible catastrophe when challenging the concept of innovation as an intrinsic good. Matthew then makes the case for transparency as a gateway to enforcing existing civil rights and laws. 

Matthew Scherer is a Senior Policy Counsel for Workers' Rights and Technology at the Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT). He studies how emerging technologies affect workers in the workplace and labor market.   Matt is also an Advisor for the International Center for Advocates Against Discrimination. 

A transcript of this episode is here.