Human Resources Committee on Nov. 8th, 2023

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Yes.

You spend a lot of time in this area of study. I'm sure you see things that just amaze you in the workforce, things that may even catch you off guard, things that are disruptive. Can you give us an example of something you may have seen in the last year that caught even you a bit off guard in regard to the disruption it's having within a sector? Any examples...?

[Morgan Frank]

Image generation has really picked up very quickly in just the last two years. It's performing very well compared to five years ago. It's getting better at a faster rate, and it's generalizing into other modalities as well. We're starting to see things like not just creating a single image based on a prompt but also creating several images together, based on a prompt, that are all coherent. You could think about a page from a comic book, for example, and even creating whole videos based on descriptions of the features of the objects in the image and also how they're going to interact over time.

This is really a space with a lot of expansion. This has created a lot of uncertainty for creative workers in the economy. The most obvious example is with tools like Midjourney or OpenAI's DALL-E, which are image generator platforms. What do these tools mean for the future of work for graphic designers? It seems there's a risk that graphic designers could be completely automated, but I actually don't think that's what will happen. What I expect is that these tools will make ideation, which is just one step in the creative process, much faster and much more scalable. Graphic designers will become more efficient. Maybe they can offer their services for a lower price per contract, because they're able to do this ideation so much faster. From the economics literature, we know that when there's this scaling in productivity, the scaling of demand doesn't always have to be linear. It's sometimes the case that you can get more demand as a good or product becomes easier to produce.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you so much for that response.

Mr. McKelvey, I have a quick question for you. You talked about protecting workers' rights or just protecting workers in general when it comes to the adoption of AI as it's integrated more and more into the space that workers operate within.

How do we as policy-makers, as folks who build regulation, develop policy, regulations and legislation that keep up with the changes that are happening so quickly? Even in your space and with your expertise, I would say that you probably couldn't predict with accuracy what's going to happen even next year.

How do we get ahead of it by making sure that the policy, legislation and regulations we put in place actually are aligned with where we're going? Do you have any thoughts on that when it comes to workers' rights?

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

Honourable member, I can assure you that I can't predict what will happen next, nor when the light will go out in my office.

I will tell you that I think there are actually long-term trends. I feel that one thing that is important to recognize is that generative AI is arriving in a pretty well-established policy context when you have growing debate and concerns across the government about the influence of large technology firms.

Really, two things come to mind as key points. One has been an approach that governments elsewhere have been trying to look at around arbitration and being able to allow for and support our collective bargaining power when there's such asymmetry between a large platform and a worker on those platforms. I would add that many of the creative sectors working online now are out front and centre on the impacts of algorithms and how that will impact content creation.

I would think that one part is trying to figure out how to, in places, step in to alleviate bargaining asymmetries. The second is trying to deal with actually the contracts and contract law, because in many ways you're dealing with service arrangements with large institutions and cloud providers. This is another key point where we need symmetries in place. I think those are two key sites of identification.

I think the third thing is just being mindful of the changes that are taking place in workplace surveillance. This is a long-standing trend. Certainly things like the turn toward algorithmic management and employee monitoring programs are not going away. I think sustained attention could be dedicated there.

[Michael Coteau, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. Coteau.

Ms. Chabot, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to thank the witnesses.

I was pleased to see Quebec hosting an important forum on framing artificial intelligence last week, with a number of players in attendance. Even though the data is lacking, we're starting to see some interesting impact studies. I wanted to point that out.

My first question is for you, Mr. McKelvey.

In your speech, you talked about Bill C‑27. I should point out that our committee is not studying this bill. Another committee is studying it. One of my colleagues told me that the committee had only reached data protection in its study of the bill. Therefore, the committee hasn't yet gotten into the real challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

You have made us aware that the Standing Committee on Human Resources, Skills Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities could study the effects of Bill C‑27. In your opinion, should the two committees do it simultaneously rather than one after the other? Can you tell us more about that?

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

First, some of my comments were also drawn from the forum for AI presentation in Montreal and some of the panel discussions around labour. I actually think it is important to recognize the differences in Quebec's leadership on addressing the social impacts of artificial intelligence. That was an important milestone in trying to push an agenda of trying to think about AI as not simply economic policy but also as social policy.

The challenge, presently, with Bill C-27 is that it's complex enough in itself, and then there is the added AIDA amendment. It's a really challenging moment to make very important legislation work, so having more eyes on it, particularly attention from your committee on the labour impacts of Bill C-27, would be welcome.

Given the time that this committee will have to investigate the multitude of changes, I don't think there is going to be enough time to address those effectively. This is an important way of coordinating AI policy across the government, which in my own research I found lacking.

[Louise Chabot, Bloc, Thérèse-De Blainville, QC]

Thank you. That's a very good argument.

You mentioned three things about the workforce. One thing you said was that the effects would be unevenly distributed. You also talked about quality of work, which is something I'm very interested in. Earlier, my Conservative colleague spoke about productivity. In my opinion, productivity is not only related to the number of hours worked; quality of work is also important.

In your opinion, what effects will AI have on quality of work?

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

I want to first clarify that artificial intelligence is a complicated term presently.

I appreciate Dr. Frank's work in distinguishing between the present discussions of generative AI and the broader term that we use for artificial intelligence. Certainly, there is a wholesale conversation about AI's impact, but I think in this moment right now what we're talking about is generative AI.

The two parts that stand out to me are that, one, Canada's position, at least in the generative AI landscape, is different from its position in the broader AI ecosystem. You've really seen movement from a few large American firms to launch some of the main products—you hear about ChatGPT and the other ones—which I think are not necessarily part of the Canadian ecosystem. That, I think, raises the first question about where we fit in our own workplace autonomy, what tools we are able to use and how much we are kind of following. I think that's an important shift.

The second thing is that my background is largely in studying media systems. My closest proxy to understanding the distributive effects of artificial intelligence is looking at creators online and around platform regulation. I would say that a lot of the impacts of artificial intelligence are around automated ad generation.

Facebook is launching new features to auto-generate AI in ads. A lot of the content is this kind of high-level creative stuff, and I think the daily churn of information production is an important place where this impact is going to take place. Partially, I think our information systems are really primed for high-volume, low-quality content. That's been a kind of wide concern, and certainly one of the impacts that we have in journalism presently is that you see workers attuned to generating press and stories for the algorithm.

My first concern is one where you could see a kind of devaluing of the type of labour that's being done, because it could be done quicker or more efficiently. The second of my comments is that I think—and this is from my read of the OECD literature—there is also this potential of a deskilling, saying that we are automating this and that enables certain types of tasks. I think that's specifically generative AI and the generative AI that's being approached in a top-down way. It's being embedded in key productivity suites and kind of rolled out with the expectation that people are figuring out how to use it.

I think an important point to make is that how OpenAI, which launched ChatGPT, has been deliberately trying to kind of hack and disrupt the workplace. That open demo—what was ChatGPT—demonstrates that is a business strategy we want to attend to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Thank you, Mr. McKelvey and Ms. Chabot.

Ms. Zarrillo, you have six minutes, please.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much.

Thank you to the witnesses.

I'm going to ask my question initially of Mr. McKelvey.

We're obviously in the very early stages of this, as legislators, and I'm sure that it's going to evolve over time. Right now I'm wanting to focus on the obvious traps that we should be legislating. I really appreciate the three that you brought forward.

I'm interested in your expanding a little bit more on this “efficiency benefits are fairly distributed”. With the intersectional lens that you brought to this discussion, which is gender.... There could be other intersections, of course. This committee looks at disability inclusion, so I'm also very interested in how that would benefit or harm persons with disabilities and bring them into the workforce.

With that lens, I'm wondering if you could explain a little bit how workers can be protected and benefit from the obvious evolution.

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

I do want to acknowledge that there are opportunities here. One of the parts that I think is important with generative AI in these opportunities is thinking about how they're changing the barriers to access, particularly when it comes to things like passing as a native English speaker.

If we're adapting and trying to understand the multiple layers, I think one part is trying to acknowledge one of the potential benefits, recognizing some of the proxies we have for workplace competency, like English writing, which is something that might ultimately be beneficial in allowing people who are non-native speakers to actually access those skills. That kind of goes back to things like grammar.

Part of what we're looking at here is attending to the different.... There are two parts that I think are coming up. There's one dealing with change in the precarious workforce, when you're talking about more contract work, shift work or gig work. AI doesn't change that, but I think AI adds to the importance of studying the shifts in the labour market towards more user platform arrangements, like what we see with Uber.

That's really where I feel there's going to be one potential point of impact: whether you're going to see AI as part of what we call the “algorithmic management” of those platforms. Those are often people turning to those as jobs of last resort or jobs that they're looking to.... I think that in one sense it's an important way of protecting workers who are in those kinds of gig jobs.

The second part, then, I think, is trying to look at the way that, more broadly, we have this silent arrangement with a few large technology firms that are providing critical infrastructure and how conscious they are of understanding the ways their data collection practices are affecting the workforce and might be in place.

I think those are my best guesses as remarks. I think there is a challenge here about, really, this deeper question: Is the driving force of this kind of productivity just going to be something...? Where is it going to be adopted and where are the drivers here? Part of what I see is that generative AI is incentivizing further automation in places that already seem automatable, like in content creation. There is, I think, a way of saying that jobs that have already been deskilled or marginalized are going to become exacerbated by this turn towards generative AI.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thanks for that.

I was hoping to get a bit of a further look into your comments around the gender split and how we need to look at this data—and also for disability. Have there been conversations around how data needs to be split? Have there been conversations around the disproportionate amount of data that's already in these larger systems that didn't look at women's voices, that didn't look at racialized voices and that didn't look at disability voices at the same percentage or to the same degree?

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

In preparation for this, I was trying to look for evidence of where these impacts would be coming from. I wasn't able to find anything that's been published that's talking about the impacts in Canada, necessarily, with the gender-based, I would say, and I'd add that this is really an important part of what's going on in these discussions about artificial intelligence, especially in generative models: the biases that embed and reproduce.

I would like to acknowledge that, when you're talking about what voices, it's also important to recognize what voices these systems reproduce. This is really fantastic work. When you look for and ask for a generative AI model to depict a doctor, is it more likely to be a male than a female? It's the same thing when it comes to depicting.... If you describe someone from a different country, how do they reproduce certain key stereotypes?

I think one part—to add to what I clearly agree with you is a need to identify how automation and generative AI will impact jobs from an intersectional framework—is that this is clear investigative work, clear work that needs to be done. There is also a clear concern about the biases built into and baked into these technologies that are being rolled out as solutions to workplace productivity.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you so much. I know that this is going to be a long conversation over time.

I want to go back to protecting workers' incomes. We all know that the writers were on strike, and now it's the film industry. It's really impacting communities north and south of the border. I want to talk about those workers, those creative workers who have already seen the impacts. Perhaps you could share a bit about how incomes need to be protected and privacy and how this data collection now matters, but really, I want to know how we protect workers' incomes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Please give us a short answer, Mr. McKelvey.

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

I think there's a question about ensuring that there's proper taxation, which is another discussion around large platforms, and making sure they are contributing. I know there's some stall in movement in the OECD. Certainly you're talking about ensuring that the benefits or the profits of a lot of these key platforms aren't leaving Canada. I think that's part of ensuring that there are those strong social safety networks to support workers in general, whether that requires an expansion of minimum wage....

There's a lot of discussion. It's a bit hard because it's so fraught. When you're talking about universal basic income, that is often trotted out. Sometimes I think it undermines actually getting strong worker protections. I think there's a host of things that can be in place.

I would say the one thing is that I've heard from creators and opened up some productive dialogues. There is concern there. There's definitely concern in the creative sector about what's taking place around generative AI.

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Dr. McKelvey—

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

I think it kind of demonstrates to me what's an important arrangement here. If this technology is not coming into a neutral place, it's coming in where you're talking about large studios, creators and the relationships between them.

I think—

[The Chair, Liberal, Bobby Morrissey]

Dr. McKelvey, perhaps you could conclude your thought. I'm sure other questioners will get to you. I do have to keep close to the schedule, so I will move on to Mr. Aitchison.

Dr. McKelvey, you can certainly conclude your thought process in response to another question. Thank you.

Mr. Aitchison, go ahead for five minutes.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

I do have a couple of questions, but I am curious to hear the rest of your thought, Mr. McKelvey, if you would like to finish it.

[Prof. Fenwick McKelvey]

Thank you so much. I appreciate the time.

I just wanted to say that I think what's interesting is that, in at least the writers strike, what was being negotiated was access to data and trying to ensure that workers were able to understand their place in the organization, which I think is an important thread.

There was also a concern that, if you're talking about franchise models and about generating the next Marvel movie, then you're talking about a type of cultural production that is really oriented towards keeping the same type of content being churned out. I think that's where workers were concerned that their scripts or their content would be used to train models that ultimately would either undermine their bargaining power or replace them. That's important only to point out the kind of context and where there is a benefit or perceived value in this kind of automated content generation.

The third thing is what actors are negotiating for—and this seems like a clear split—which is whether they have a right to their face and whether studios have, in perpetuity, access to modify their images. That I think all speaks to the idea that workers need to have data rights and privacy rights. I think the actors guild and the writers guild have really been the ones at the forefront of demonstrating what is a broad concern, not just in Hollywood.

[Scott Aitchison, Conservative, Parry Sound—Muskoka, ON]

Okay. Thank you for that.

I'm one of those people who are still sort of struggling to grasp what exactly the scope of AI is, I guess, but there's no question that, in the last 50 years, technology has advanced and changed in an exponential fashion.

I'm wondering if you can give me an example of a technology from even a generation ago that had a similar kind of impact on our labour markets and on our society, about which there was this level of concern or caution or interest.

The question is for both witnesses.

[Morgan Frank]

Sure. I'll start.

The Internet comes to mind. I don't know that it was similar in terms of concern, but it was certainly similar in terms of being ubiquitous across many domains and really shifting the nature of many jobs. However, it did also create a lot of new jobs that were unimaginable before the Internet. I would say the Internet is a comparable example, even if the conversation at the time when the Internet was young had different tones to it.