Redwood City – San Mateo County supervisors on Tuesday approved a resolution by Supervisor Ray Mueller that affirms the County’s commitment to maintaining County jobs during advancements in artificial intelligence.
“Almost 100 years ago the economist John Maynard Keynes warned us of ‘technological unemployment’ – that is a period in a time during technological disruption, where job losses caused by technological gains will outpace job creation,” Mueller said. “This AI policy, in essence, is meant to safeguard against that outcome.”
The resolution, approved 5-0, also directs the County’s Executive’s Office to develop strategies that balance technological advancement with sustaining the workforce.
“The future of work in San Mateo County, and California, will include AI but policy makers must work to ensure that AI’s implementation retains the balance of embracing innovation, without sacrificing the prosperity of our human workforce,” Mueller said.
While some forms of artificial intelligence have been around for years, chatbots like ChatGPT that mimic human interaction have only been widely available for little more than a year. AI tools can create and process vast amounts of data and can often streamline administrative tasks and processes.
At the same time, “AI systems can produce unintended consequences due to biases, errors, or unforeseen circumstances. These unintended consequences can have significant moral implications, such as discriminatory behavior, privacy violations, or harm to individuals or society.”
The source for the above quote? A chatbot’s reply when asked about risks associated with the use of artificial intelligence.
“When a chatbot is literally telling us it has biases, we should listen,” Mueller said. “While the potential of AI is tremendous, we also have to acknowledge that AI routinely makes errors. What we’re doing here in San Mateo County is taking a measured, reasonable approach to examining how we can incorporate AI into our work without risking jobs and risking the services we provide.”
The number of jobs at risk due to advances in AI continues to rise.
According to a March 2023 report by Goldman Sachs, “If generative AI delivers on its promised capabilities, the labor market could face significant disruption. Using data on occupational tasks in both the US and Europe, we find that roughly two-thirds of current jobs are exposed to some degree of AI automation, and that generative AI could substitute up to one-fourth of current work. Extrapolating our estimates globally suggests that generative AI could expose the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs to automation.”
A study released in July 2023 by Pew Research found that a fifth of all workers in 2022 were in jobs that are the most exposed to AI. The study found that “women, Asian, college-educated and higher-paid workers are more exposed.”
“We must ask if technological implementation also generates new jobs and raises our collective quality of life, as opposed to just eliminating the need for workforce. This is the only way we can ensure the public health and future economic stability for County residents,” Mueller said.