Applied sciences from AI to superior robotics have been celebrated for his or her means to lighten folks’s workload. However regardless of their guarantees, these applied sciences aren’t getting used to enhance employees’ lives or preserve them protected. In 2023, 385 employees died on daily basis resulting from hazardous working circumstances, with over 3 million extra work-related accidents and sicknesses reported that 12 months in the US.
Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and Alphabet spent a collective $155 billion on AI improvement within the first six months of 2025—near what the whole U.S. authorities has spent on schooling, coaching, employment, and social providers for the reason that begin of its fiscal 12 months 9 months in the past. But, little or no of this funding has gone to make employees’ lives safer. What does this say about us as a society?
In well being care, a typical explanation for office damage is pressure from lifting and bodily helping sufferers. Assistive know-how may go an extended solution to stopping these widespread accidents—applied sciences like robotic exoskeletons, which may be utilized in healthcare settings for this function, exist already. However we don’t see firms racing to construct one of the best robotic assists for care employees. As a substitute, hundreds of firms are creating chatbots that exchange their buyer assist employees or automate away entry-level roles.
In truth, robots really appear to be making warehouse employees’ jobs worse. Rushing up processes with robotics requires employees to hurry up as properly—resulting in elevated accidents. A number of investigations have discovered elevated charges of damage in warehouses that use robotics; between 2016 and 2019, Amazon warehouses with robots had a 50% greater damage charge than these with out. And even in 2020, when Amazon briefly relaxed lots of its necessities to work at a sure tempo, warehouses with robotics had a 14% greater damage charge than these with out.
Whereas warehouse robots now include extra security protections, updating older tools with new security options doesn’t appear to be a precedence. In truth, security doesn’t appear to be a precedence.
Throughout a go to to a big warehouse facility a couple of years in the past, I watched employees packing packing containers at lightning pace, surrounded by screens and robots. I additionally noticed aggressive signage all through the ability, warning employees that heavy machines may start shifting at any second. The message was clear: In the event you have been injured it was your fault for not being cautious sufficient.
Neglect of employee security is just not new—all through U.S. historical past, manufacturing pace and income have outweighed the worth of human lives. Whereas the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) reveals a fairly constant year-over-year drop in general office accidents and fatalities, the change is minuscule: Accidents have dropped from 2.8 per 100 employees in 2019, to 2.4 in 2023. In the meantime, dying charges are growing for employees of shade: In 2023 Black employees confronted their highest fatality charges in 20 years, and Latino employee deaths have risen steadily since 2020.
Highly effective well being and security applied sciences exist however are vastly underutilized. A brand new sensor may assist farm employees, certainly one of our most poorly paid however essential workforces, forestall harmful heat-related sickness. Wearable sensible units can monitor air air pollution and alert employees—from miners to cleaners—of harmful air high quality. Different sensible tech can assist right unhealthy posture that might result in damage or guarantee equipment shuts down routinely if a employee will get too shut. These applied sciences may forestall hurt for a lot of employees however we have to put money into them and—crucially—give employees enter and decision-making energy to make sure the applied sciences we put money into will successfully handle their wants.
There are firms main the way in which on consulting employees when implementing new applied sciences, like Microsoft, which is working in partnership with the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) to get employee enter on AI improvement. Nonetheless, many lower-wage professions are unlikely to get the funding wanted to implement superior employee security tech. Up to date office security rules, which account for the chances unlocked by new applied sciences, are wanted to make sure employees are gaining access to lifesaving tools.
Once I envision an financial system using superior applied sciences, I don’t consider one the place employees get their limbs amputated in factories, endure lung injury from cleansing chemical substances, or get stress accidents from being requested to work quicker and quicker for meager pay.
We want daring motion—rules that require using security tech, incentives for firms that put money into it, and employee voices on the desk. Coverage makers and enterprise leaders can assist us course right; we’d like employee protections for a brand new age of know-how and funding in tech that facilities the wants—and security—of employees.
