By Prof. Kaushik Chaudhuri, Organizational Behavior and Human Resource Management,
School of Management and Entrepreneurship, Shiv Nadar University, Delhi – NCR
There can be severe ethical issues when any decision is processed automatically using algorithms in AI. In reality, AI may not function biased-free, rather can be well programmed to deliver concocted outputs, baneful to employee wellbeing and social goods. There can be a definite menace of unauthorized intrusion into the privacy of employee data, surveillance, panopticism, employee profiling without informed consent, through ambiguous, unscientific and opaque procedures, leading to unfair treatment and discrimination, subordination of targeted groups, sects, genders of people. Such practices can be well arranged in organizations by implementing irresponsible HRM practices, leading to the abuse of this system.
The context of the business environment, such as in the deployment of AI in people management, is crucial for framing business policies and decisions. The context of AI in management is the new age gig economy, where labor laws are deficient and the protection shield of unions to employees is rapidly shrinking in the developed and developing economies. As a result, employees would remain with very frail opportunities to have any conscious choice on the terms and conditions of employment.
The deterioration of the employee’s voice and paucity of conscious choices to assess and validate algorithmic coding of AI for its fairness and making a decision of informed consent in this management process remains an obscure dream for employees. Such exploitation would increasingly breach the psychological contract of employment in these organizations. The psychological contract of employment, which is the employer – employee mutual relationship, their mutual promises- fulfillment, obligations and expectations, and entitlements of dignity and reciprocity would be eroded, resulting in a trust deficit and negative employee outcomes.
Pervasive abuse of tools such as AI in management could well be driven by misconceived notions of efficiency, incited by delusionary ideas of innovation and market-driven metrics, which satisfy the short-term profit outlooks of shareholders, promoters and drive employers to extract huge financial value by depleting costs of employee wellbeing, insurance, growth and benefits. Thus, in such a context where a consensual agreement and compliance with the ethical and legal frameworks of an AI-system in its design, governance and applications are absent, it is extremely difficult for AI to ever create the desired social good. As it is perpetually programmed and rigged only for the attainment of good for a few individuals or groups at the cost of others and therefore is extremely unethical.
A new form of employee contracts would be generated when AI is enforced and imposed upon employees. The micro-employees would be engaged as gig workers for the giant tech organizations and would be compelled to construct algorithms in AI, which would remain fundamentally biased and ethically imperiled.
Empirically, the AI algorithm’s engagement with fairness in the decision-making process still remains a ‘blackbox’, and perhaps unattainable. We must decide to reexamine organizational management philosophy, which is the organization’s core values, purpose, and mission, norms of action, and practices to achieve its objectives and preserve its social contract of business ethically. In addition, the integrity of business models to fulfill their obligation to serve a value to the stakeholders, organizational prestige, and employer brand will collapse and the trust in AI in management processes will falter.
