New York Times Accused of AI Surveillance Violating Tech Workers' Rights

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The New York Times is accused by its unionized tech workers of using AI tools (DX and Glean) to monitor and evaluate employee performance without proper notification, allegedly violating collective bargaining agreements and labor rights. The NewsGuild of New York has filed grievances and an unfair labor practice charge in response.[AI generated]

Why's our monitor labelling this an incident or hazard?

The article explicitly mentions the use of AI to surveil employees, which is an AI system involvement in the use phase. The alleged surveillance violates collective bargaining agreements and labor rights, which are protected under applicable law, thus constituting harm under category (c) of AI Incidents. The filing of grievances and unfair labor practice charges indicates that harm has occurred or is ongoing. Hence, this is an AI Incident rather than a hazard or complementary information.[AI generated]
AI principles
Privacy & data governanceTransparency & explainability

Industries
Media, social platforms, and marketing

Affected stakeholders
Workers

Harm types
Human or fundamental rights

Business function:
Human resource management

AI system task:
Event/anomaly detection


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