A bipartisan pair of senators is pushing for more and better data to understand the impact of artificial intelligence on the workforce.
That data could help back up what experts told a Senate subcommittee on Wednesday — that the biggest AI-fueled change may be different tasks at work rather than mass unemployment.
Sens. Jim Banks, R-Ind., and John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., urged support for their bill that would add questions to federal surveys about how AI is used in the workplace and which occupations are most impacted.
Banks introduced the bill, known as the AI Workforce Projections, Research and Evaluations to Promote AI Readiness and Employment, or AI Workforce PREPARE Act, in December.
At a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s panel on Employment and Workforce Safety, which Banks chairs, he said that better data is a first step toward helping workers master skills needed “in the AI economy.”
