AI ethics guidelines overlook labour standards, ILO paper finds

Collective rights the clearest blind spot

The paper compares five widely cited AI ethics principles – justice, beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy and explicability – with the ethical foundations of the ILO’s framework. 

It finds important convergence on justice, beneficence and non-maleficence. It also finds that AI ethics focuses largely on individuals, while labour standards place greater weight on collective representation.

“For the right of collective bargaining, however, we do not see a clear ethical equivalent in existing AI ethics frameworks,” the authors wrote.

They argue that the ILO’s foundational commitments are internationally agreed and backed by supervisory mechanisms. As a result, those commitments “provide a level of clarity, legitimacy, and durability that most contemporary AI ethics frameworks typically do not yet possess.”

What it means for responsible AI policies

The findings raise a practical question for HR leaders drafting or reviewing responsible AI policies: whether those policies account for workplace obligations such as non-discrimination, freedom of association and collective bargaining.