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State Sen. Michelle Hinchey\u2019s proposal, the AI Labor Information Act, would require annual reporting from businesses with 50 or more employees on job losses to artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n
Will Waldron\/Times Union<\/p>\n
ALBANY \u2014 The idea that tens of thousands of office workers in New York could be replaced over the next five years by computer programs reads like the plot of a dystopian science fiction novel. But the trend is already underway: approximately 54,000 workers nationwide lost their jobs last year because of artificial intelligence, according to a\u00a0Congressional report released in December<\/a>.<\/p>\n For many, AI first appeared through generative text-prompt applications like ChatGPT. But the technology has continued to evolve rapidly. Generative AI now powers sophisticated \u201cagentic systems\u201d capable of performing tasks without human prompting, which many experts predict are the next wave of job-replacement technology<\/a>.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n For state Sen. Michelle Hinchey, who grew up in Saugerties and remembers the economic pessimism that followed the closure of IBM\u2019s Kingston plant 30 years ago, the implications for upstate New York are profound. She worries not only about mass layoffs, but also about whether unemployment insurance systems are prepared.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are watching the fast march towards a kind of full elimination of entry-level jobs, mid-management jobs, even mid-to-senior management jobs, across many, many sectors,\u201d Hinchey told the Times Union.<\/p>\n Anthropic \u2014 the company behind Claude, one of the most advanced and widely used large language models \u2014 released a labor market impact report on March 20<\/a> that predicted jobs in the computer and math, business and finance, and life and social sciences are most vulnerable to AI replacement.<\/p>\n Make the Times Union a Preferred Source on Google to see more of our journalism when you search.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Add Preferred Source<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n In the Hudson Valley, which Hinchey represents in the Senate, approximately 40,004 residents work in computer and math-related fields, with job titles including programmer, software developer, database architect and information systems manager, according to data compiled by Lightcast, a labor market analytics firm. These workers account for roughly 2% of the regional workforce. Their salaries place them solidly in the middle class, earning more than $100,000 annually in every county except Ulster and Columbia.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Dutchess County has nearly twice the average share of computer science workers compared to neighboring counties, with 3.9% of its workforce employed in tech-related jobs.<\/p>\n In the Capital Region, Albany County has the region\u2019s highest concentration at 5.5%, while Rensselaer County reports 3.4%.<\/p>\n Beyond computer science, other white-collar occupations facing high exposure to AI replacement include office administration, professional business services, finance, information services, private education and healthcare. Altogether, more than half a million New Yorkers work in fields considered especially vulnerable to market consolidation and contraction driven by AI.<\/p>\n With New York\u2019s occupational exposure among the highest in the nation<\/a>, according to some studies, lawmakers say the need for legislative action has taken on new urgency. Hinchey\u2019s proposal, the AI Labor Information Act<\/a>, would require annual reporting from businesses with 50 or more employees on how many workers were fired, which positions were replaced in whole or in part by AI, and how many work hours remain assigned to humans.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cTo be able to move forward in a responsible way, we have to start understanding what the scope and scale are for us,\u201d Hinchey said. \u201cEvery year we don\u2019t becomes another year of signaling to the tech industry that we\u2019re not paying attention.\u201d<\/p>\n Though her bill has not yet made it to the floor for deliberation, much less the governor\u2019s desk, Hinchey said she felt positive about it passing this session. After moving through respective introductory Labor Committees in both houses, the Senate version is now in the Finance Committee. The Assembly version, carried by Rochester Assemblymember Harry Bronson, has additionally passed through the Codes Committee to arrive at the Ways and Means Committee.<\/p>\n \u201cIn a year like this, when there are so many bills that have been delayed because of the budget process, that it\u2019s moved through the relevant committees at all is a really good sign,\u201d Hinchey said, noting that labor unions like the AFL-CIO are lobbying for the bill.<\/p>\n As a member of the Senate\u2019s Internet and Technology Committee, Hinchey questioned tech industry representatives during a January public hearing examining how artificial intelligence should be regulated.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Among those testifying was Alex Spyropoulos, director of government relations for Tech:NYC, an industry trade association. He emphasized upskilling and AI literacy as part of the solution.<\/p>\n \u201cWe work with a lot of organizations in New York City through our foundation work (and) our \u2018decoded futures\u2019 programming, where we\u2019re upskilling a lot of these AI nonprofits to help them to understand the tools that AI can provide for them and how they can integrate them into their workflows because they are under-resourced,\u201d Spyropoulos said, adding, \u201cWe all know the local nonprofit that wishes it had more time to spend serving the community but instead spends time doing data processing.\u201d<\/p>\n The increasingly popular buzzword<\/a> \u201cupskilling\u201d echoes the language of \u201cretraining\u201d that dominated economic debates three decades ago, when New York grappled with the loss of manufacturing jobs. In the first seven years after the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, 46,210 New Yorkers lost factory jobs<\/a>, according to a report from the nonprofit think tank Economic Policy Institute.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n