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Committee: International Labour Organization (ILO)
Chair Members:
President: Daniel Contreras
Moderator: Pablo Alduncin Perezcastro
Secretary: Sofía Ramírez Gross
Topic: Unemployment Caused by Artificial Intelligence
I.
INTRODUCTION
The International Labour Organization was created as a result of the Treaty of Versailles in
1919, being just after the labour problems that were caused by World War I, it is one of
ECOSOC´s specialized agencies. ILO´s main goal is to protect the needs of workers all
around the globe, after governments and workers that form part of the organization get to an
agreement on labour standards. It sustains 187 countries, including all five of the permanent
members.
The
International
Labour
Organization's
principal
missions
are:
● “Protecting jobs, protecting people;
● Promoting social justice;
● Recognize human and labour rights;
● Setting labour standards;
● Developing policies;
● Improve working and living conditions in all countries;
● Formulation of basic international programs and policies to promote human rights;
●
Creation of working standards backed by a supervising system of application;
● Helping countries to implement policies effectively; and
● International cooperation programme to keep partnerships between countries.” (ILO,
2015)
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Therefore unemployment caused by artificial intelligence is leaving each year more
people without a job. Unemployment is caused by multiple phenomena, all reasons very
different from each other, however lately, there has been an increase in the unemployment
rates caused by the technological advances of the century, meaning people have been loosing
their labours due to the possession of computers and robots which replace humans, causing
non conformance between workers devoted to the industry.
II.
HISTORY OF THE PROBLEM
● Arthur Samuel: was a pioneer of artificial intelligence research. He had a career as
an electrical engineer,
simultaneously being an
engineer and manager of
research of engineering
and science. He became
active on the project of
creating
the
firsts
electronic computers.
● Alan
Turing:
Mathematician, logician,
Image 1. John Mccarthy 1956 (see Annexes 1)
scientist of the computation, philosopher. Helped to turn the tide of the belic conflict,
by breaking the U-Boat Enigma.
● Oliver Selfridge: Thanks to his creation, years later, two mathematicians created
“Oliver” (an "Online Interactive Vicarious Expediter and Responder") which was a
personal assistant.
● Ray Solomonoff: was one of the pioneers of Machine Learning that explores the
study and construction of algorithms.
● Allen Newell: Winner of the A.M. Turing Award “made basic contributions to
artificial intelligence, the psychology of human cognition, and list processing.”
(Association for Computing Machinery, 2012)
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● Nathaniel Rochester: Was a computer scientist, he wrote the first assembler, low
language for computers, and started the field of AI.
● Claude Shannon: Has a career on Mathematical Engineer. Is considered as the
founding father of electronic communication age.
● Marvin Minsky: He helped a lot, in the areas of: cognitive psychology, mathematics,
computational linguistics, robotics, and optics. He received many awards such as PhD
in mathematics at Harvard (1950).
● John McCarthy: He published papers on “Mathematical Theory of Computation”
(1961,1962), published AI papers such as ”Inversion of Functions Defined by Turning
Machines” (1956)
A.
Key Events
Unemployment has been a problem
since, jobs and salaries were created, causes
have changed due to the innovation that
both jobs and technology have had since.
The fact of technology becoming more
innovative than jobs lately is a concern that
workers from this era have, the situation of
artificial intelligence converting into main
sources of manufacturing is creating a
widespread in unemployed.
Image 2. International Comparisons of Unemployment
with EU and US. (see Anexes 2)
1800s.- Some economists
were
disposed to preserve the idea that artificial
intelligence is better, and described, the people who were afraid of the rapid advance of
scientific technology, as “luddites”, other say that this “luddites”, were the working people
that had no education and equivocally destroyed the machinery from the industries they were
working for.
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1900’s.- The efforts of creating machines that can repeat some human behaviors have
been an issue, the interesting thing of knowing more about human mind guided this effort to
the introduction of AI in 1950 by Alan Turing, the work of this scientist made a lot of
controversy around the world.
1950's.- Some debates were made with the purpose of eliminating the distinction
between natural intelligence and artificial. In the United States of America, the scientist John
Von Neumann continued the work of Turing by modifying the essence of the project and
focusing on the idea that computerized intelligence had to be similar to the human's brain,
Von Neumann was the first one to talk about the language, senses and memory that the
computers could have, furthermore, been taking the knowledge that scientist had about
human brain, he started creating programs that could store data in the memory of a computer.
After all the investigation Von Neumann noticed that it was more efficient to take the
investigation and focus on the functions that the brain had, such as processing information.
In the previous mentioned Dartmouth conference they established three statements:
● The recognition or acceptance that the ability of thinking can happen outside the
human brain.
● The assumption that teaching can be understood formally and in a scientific way.
● The assumption that the best way to understand is through digital computers.
1956.- The Dartmouth conference impulse the investigations of AI with the help of 10
preceding scientists that were considered as the pioneers of this new science.
1958.- The AI expanded and started developing better applications for this new
discipline, three scientists designed the first program of intelligence that was based on the
procedure of processing information, this project gives birth to the theory of cognitive
psychology.
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1983.- Upjohn Institute for Employment Research explained the highly probable
hypothesis that there would be
around
50,000
to
100,000
industrial robots by the year
1990, and as a result, around
100,000 people losing their job.
1986.- Barry Bluestone,
one of the best American
economist in the late eighteen
hundreds, worried about the
Image 3. Japan: Announces the creation of the center for the
study of AI. (see Anexes 3)
future, argued in what refers to “capital hypermobility” and said that his natal country
required “re-establishing the social safety net and extending the range of the regulatory
system to make that net even more secure.” (Bluestone, B, 1986) therefore they had to create
some kind of a policy to ensure the social safety of workers that were at risk of losing their
jobs.
Robert Reich graduate from the prestige Harvard University, claims against AI,
stating that the government must take action, taking on industrial policies, saying that the
current policies in that time were open to replace the working hand with robots.
2000.- The world’s chess champion loses against the computer “Deep Blue”.
2003.- Was tested A. Army. “It Uses chemical, gas, temperature, and radiation
sensors that are displayed in the Foster-Miller TALON robot, that was made for combat and
it is used by the U.S seal time to the user on a hand-held display unit”.
2009.- There are systems that work with feeling so they can help and work with
autistic kids.
2010.- By this time some receptionists (android located in a mall in Tokyo that
understands different languages), football players (robot made to avoid concussions), nurses
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(“Robear”, the Japanese robotic nurse), and explorers (Sojourner rover), have been replaced
with robots, such as “Robear”, the Japanese robotic nurse
2014.- Creation of QB from AnyBots, that is a control remote self balanced robot,
created to make you “go” to places where you can't attend physically.
III.
CURRENT HAPPENINGS
Artificial intelligence is all around the globe, humanity is reducing their performance in their
work life due to the continuous innovation in the technologic scope, this produces more
demand in every product, specialists start developing new ways to keep the industry going
and the customers never stop buying, more product is required and that is when companies
replace humans with artificial intelligence in the industrial sector.
Every career is affected by the continuous flow of innovation in different ways:
Science & Medicine: with AI they try to find
solutions to complex problems with machines, the
most similar way humans would do it. The human
brain has the highest level of intelligence in the
animal kingdom, so the only thing that has had a
change in science, are the materials they use to
prove their hypothesis, such as microscopes.
Coupled with, the creation of medicines and
pharmaceuticals in big scales used to be assembled
Image 4. Your X-ray Showed A Broken Rib.
(see Anexes 4)
and filled by the working hand of people, working
for the pharmaceutical industry, nevertheless they
no longer have a job due to the long term profit that buying Artificial Intelligence brings. For
future plans, scientists are trying to create robotic nurses, as well as machines that are able to
realize full operations in the human body. In the other hand, the telemedicine allows the
experts to realize a diagnosis, treatments and surgeries far away from the patient. They have
also designed machines in order to check and keep track of patients with diabetes.
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Environment: with the innovation, comes the pollution of the planet, but thankfully, the
technology is the best way to save the planet, without the artificial intelligence in this sector,
polluted waters, polluted air, can only be eradicated by improving the technology and
implementing it in various parts of the world, giving human
jobs, to create the technology.
Technology: The ideas come from humans, the assembling
is made by robots, at the beginning of the twenty first
century, when the televisions, radios, cell phones, had their
highest demand, the assembly was made by humans, not
until, the industry, found out, there was a cheaper way to
make the assembly, and the people working at this, lost their
Image 5. Technology. (see Annexes
5)
jobs.
Transportation: Cars, motorcycles, bicycles, all are the most common way of transportation,
depending on your location, the use of them changes, but generally, these are the most
common, and this is not the only
thing that they share, once, the
metals are made to perfection, they
are accommodated in machines and
the machines are the ones in charge
of making the car and putting each
part where it belongs.
Image 6. We, Robots. (see Annexes 6)
2015 was a breakthrough year in the AI just because computers are smarter and
learning faster than ever. In tests, error rates are down to less than 5%, making them better
than some humans' performances. It has been proven that one multi-tasker bot, from
Momentum Machines, can make a gourmet hamburger in 10 seconds and could soon replace
an entire McDonalds crew.
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IV.

CONTROVERSIAL POINTS
Companies spare salaries.
With the reason that the machines do the labor of a human in less time and don´t
have to be paid

Industries create jobs in order to make AI machines.
The machines of AI that many companies use have to be done by someone

No risk of internal problems.
People require more attention and cares, for example insurance. Machines are
easier to manage and they do exactly what you are asking, there are no problems
between workers.

Efficiency and Cost.
The companies only invest in one machine that covers the job of hundreds of
workers. This, affects the economy of the people but increases the one of the
company, is a big first investment but you get it back quickly.
V.
KEY POINTS
The key points that this committee is expecting the delegates to debate are the
following:

Economic impact of AI: countries’ and industries’ position.

Market Transparency: What products, services or capital assets are available to give to
each sector.

Ways to balance AI and the unemployment rate.

Salaries and wages of the workers.

AI Usefulness: demand and mass production.

AI to share human biases for better, not worse.

New Job Market: AI can't be created with other AI, humans have to assemble it.
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VI.
UN ACTIONS
For unfortunate reasons the United Nations has not had or made any type of actions in order
to solve this problem, even though, they are totally aware of it. The UN and specially the
International Labour Organization have only taken actions on youth and long-term
unemployment, some of the factors of this topic can be totally beneficial in order to get to a
resolution to the replacement of people by artificial intelligence.
For example, in short term, some countries are working on a self-employed armament
system, which is going to be able to choose and eradicate targets without necessity of human
hands. The UN is completely against of this type of armament and is working on the
abolishment.
VII. BLOCK ANALYSIS
Western European and Others Group
Europe starts from a strong position in Artificial Intelligence and robotics, having a 32% of
the current global market. Industrial robotics has around one third of the world market. In
terms of social sciences, the use of robotics in society has created many ethical and social
issues as well as legal ones. Europe has control and leads the worldwide debate in this sector
and it is important that ethical, legal, and social investigations should be at the forefront of
considerations regarding the deployment and use of robotics in the European society.
Also Zuckerberg is providing machines that improve the AI in some European
companies, Machines that will be constantly learning and developing to improve results such
as finding cancer faster.
Latin American and Caribbean Group
"San Francisco-based startup has created a fully-automated burger-flipping machine, which is
being tipped to replace workers in fast food restaurants. Elsewhere, plans have been
announced to introduce “fully intelligent robot” police officers in the United Arab Emirates
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before the end of the decade, with the intention of providing “better services without hiring
more people.”
On August 22, 2014, a robot made by a US as the prove that the robotics science will
give an easier way to solve some hygiene situations for example the creation of TRU-D that
its function is to disinfect a room including ridding it of the Ebola virus. Oxford University
researchers have estimated that 47 percent of U.S. jobs could be automated within the next
two decades.
Eastern European and Others Group
Neural networks are changing the Internet. Inspired by the networks of neurons inside the
human brain, these deep mathematical models can learn discrete tasks by analyzing enormous
amounts of data. They’ve learned to recognize faces in photos, identify spoken commands,
and translate text from one language to another. And that’s just a start. They’re also moving
into the heart of tech giants like Google and Facebook. They’re helping to choose what you
see when you query the Google search engine or visit your Facebook News Feed.
All this is sharpening the behavior of online services. But it also means the Internet is
poised for an ideological confrontation with the European Union, the world’s single largest
online market.
Asian Pacific Group
A new artificial intelligence, an apparatus made for accelerating charged particles to high
velocity known as Accelerator, was founded by a Hong Kong-born venture capitalist who
wants to bring Asia’s best AI start-ups to the global stage.
Dubbed Zeroth, Tak Lo, who most recently was a venture partner at the Hong Kong
venture capital company Mind Fund and director at UK-based VC Techstars created the AI
Accelerator.
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“AI for me is something that will move the meter on technology in the next five to 10
years, there’s no dispute about that,” Lo said. “We want to empower as many people as
possible to be able to make that type of impact in technology.”
African Group
Over the last 4 years, more than 20 organizations including the worldwide known WWF,
have launched initiatives to develop the participation of the citizens in robotics, some schools
and universities are giving integration programmes like robotics and artificial intelligence.
While some support the advancement in robotics in Africa, others fear it will lead to a
negative employment effect for low and middle skilled workers. The agriculture that is one of
the major job sources in Africa is being disrupted by drones that do the farmers’ job in a low
percent due to the lack of economic resources.
Africa’s robotics industry is still very young. Its positive effects are currently seen in
certain regions of the continent such as Egypt.
VIII. REFERENCES:
A. INFORMATION SOURCES
Brian Soko. (2015). “robots in Africa. What does this mean for the continent?”.
26/04/16,retrieved from: http://blog.swaliafrica.com/robots-in-africa/
Bluestone's arguments are summarized in Seltzer, R.J (August 1, 1983) "Impact of
Technology on Employment Probed" Chemical and Engineering News, pp. 23-24.
Edinformatics (2016) “FOSTER MILLER TALON MILITARY ROBOT”
http://www.edinformatics.com/math_science/robotics/foster_miller_talon.htm
Heyck, H. (1975), “Allen Newell”
http://amturing.acm.org/award_winners/newell_3167755.cfm
Holloway, R. (2010) “Ray Solomonoff's Homepage at IDSIA”
http://people.idsia.ch/~juergen/ray.html
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ILO (2012) “Conventions and Recommendations”
http://www.ilo.org/global/standards/introduction-to-international-labourstandards/conventions-and-recommendations/lang--en/index.htm
ILO (2012) “Origins and History”
http://www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/history/lang--en/index.htm
ITAM. (2012). “Breve historia de la Inteligencia Artificial.”
http://biblioteca.itam.mx/estudios/estudio/estudio10/sec_16.html
Kottasova, I. (January 15, 2016) “Smart robots could soon steal your job”
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/15/news/economy/smart-robots-stealing-jobsdavos/index.html?iid=EL
Kottasova, I. ( January 18, 2016) “Technology could kill 5 million jobs by 2020”
http://money.cnn.com/2016/01/18/news/economy/job-losses-technology-five-million/
McCarthey, J. (September 6,2016) “Arthur Samuel: Pioneer in Machine Learning”
http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/samuel.html
Metz, C (2016) "Artificial Intelligence Is Setting Up the Internet for a Huge Clash With
Europe" https://www.wired.com/2016/07/artificial-intelligence-setting-internet-hugeclash-europe/
Piana, V (2001) "UNEMPLOYMENT"
http://www.economicswebinstitute.org/glossary/unemploy.htm
NYU (2016) “CLAUDE SHANNON”
https://www.nyu.edu/pages/linguistics/courses/v610003/shan.html
Rotman, D. (June 12, 2013) “How Technology Is Destroying Jobs”
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/515926/how-technology-is-destroying-jobs/
R. H. Mabry, A. D. Sharplin (1986) “Does More Technology Create Unemployment?”
Retrieved from: http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/pa068.pdf
Reich, R.B (February 27, 1984) "Collusion Course," New Republic, pp. 18-21
Raskin, R (2014) “10 Robots to Watch in 2014”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robin-raskin/ten-robots-to-watch-in-2014_b_4696766.html
Rojas,
G.
(2014).
“Inteligencia
Artificial:
La
Conferencia
de
Dartmouth”
.
http://inteligenciaartificial1il131.blogspot.mx/
Ryan, T. (2013) “The Overall Effects of Unemployment”
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http://smallbusiness.chron.com/overall-effects-unemployment-37104.html
RT (May, 2nd 2014) "El desarrollo de la inteligencia artificial puede ser el último logro
humano"
https://actualidad.rt.com/ciencias/view/126981-hawking-desarrollo-
inteligencia-artificial
Sengenberger, W. (2013) “The International Labour Organization”
http://library.fes.de/pdf-files/iez/10279.pdf
Taub, B (2015) "Report Finds Rise Of Artificial Intelligence Could Spark Mass
Unemployment And Inequality"
http://www.iflscience.com/technology/artificial-intelligence-could-cause-massunemployment-and-inequality
The
Telegraph
(December,
23th
2008)
“Oliver
Selfridge”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/3903053/Oliver-Selfridge.html
Vincent, J (2014) "Advances in artificial intelligence could lead to mass unemployment, warn
experts"
Web.Media (2016) “Marvin Minsky”
http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/
Xen Zoo (2016) "Artificial intelligence accelerator to promote Asian AI start-ups on world
stage"
http://www.scmp.com/tech/start-ups/article/1988469/artificial-intelligence-
accelerator-promote-asian-ai-start-ups-world
B. RECOMMENDED SOURCES

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/advances-in-artificialintelligence-could-lead-to-mass-unemployment-warn-experts-9094017.html

http://www.scienceprog.com/what-artificial-intelligence-can-do-these-days/

http://www.inc.com/tess-townsend/5-predictions-for-ai-2016.html

http://inteligenciaartificialhugovega2014i.blogspot.mx/

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-08/why-2015-was-a-breakthroughyear-in-artificial-intelligence

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/544901/what-robots-and-ai-learned-in-2015/

https://www.eurai.org/

https://www.wired.com/brandlab/2015/04/rise-machines-future-lots-robots-jobshumans/
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
http://documents.mx/documents/pros-y-contras-de-la-inteligencia-artificial.html#

https://econfuture.wordpress.com/2011/06/07/productivity-and-employment-astructural-change/

http://s3.amazonaws.com/academia.edu.documents/37589003/AI_Science_Impact_v
14_.pdf?AWSAccessKeyId=AKIAJ56TQJRTWSMTNPEA&Expires=1474259511&Sig
nature=UaVKs2TTqy%2B9s9aQfLf8CIKW1I4%3D&response-contentdisposition=inline%3B%20filename%3DArtificial_Intelligence_Science_and_Impa.pdf
IX. ANNEXES
1. INDEPENDENT (2011) John Mccarthy: Computer scientists known as the father of
AI. Retrieved from: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/john-mccarthycomputer-scientist-known-as-the-father-of-ai-6255307.html
2. ECONOMICS.HELP (2011) International Comparisons of Unemployment with EU
and US. Retrieved from:
http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1778/unemployment/uk-unemployment-rate/
3. TECNOMAGAZINE (2016) Japan: Announces the creation of the center for the
study of AI. Retrieved from: http://tecnomagazine.net/2016/08/23/japon-anuncia-lacreacion-de-centro-para-estudio-de-la-inteligencia-artificial/
4. FUNNY CLONE (2015) Your X-ray Showed A Broken Rib. Retrieved from:
http://www.funnyclone.com/your-x-ray-showed-a-broken-rib/
5. PINTEREST (2014) Get into bet and i'll text you a story. Retrieved from:
https://es.pinterest.com/pin/464574517782506718/
6. THE ECONOMIST (2014) We, robots. Retrieved from:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2014/01/artificial-intelligence-networks
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