Government and opposition TDs have spoken out about the impacts of artificial intelligence on the workforce and education.
During a Dáil debate on the issue, Fine Gael TDs James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South) and Maeve O’Connell (Dublin Rathdown) spoke of the economic and educational concerns of AI adaptation.
People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy (Dublin South-West) warned that the age of AI could create more inequality within Irish society, and should the AI bubble burst, the wider Irish economy is at risk.
Geoghegan cited a report from the IMF that up to 40% of Irish jobs could be impacted by AI in some capacity.
Geoghegan noted that the report probably “underestimates” the impact of AI in Ireland, and said, “what is really being highlighted is the strong services element of our economy and the impact that AI can have on that.”
The Fine Gael TD said that AI anxiety is potent for “a lot of young people out there.”
“One of their biggest fears is that their jobs will effectively be taken away, and they will not have jobs. These are graduates who have done all of the right things, worked hard, and their parents have saved to support them through college.”
“They want to see them getting good jobs and staying and working here. They are really fearful that the introduction and pace of AI will not be good for them,” he told the Dáil.
“The only way to respond is to ensure that we have the right skill set and that our third-level institutions, our further and higher education institutions and the state are walking, as much as they can, in lockstep with the changes that are taking place in the private sector and the changes that are being adopted in the public sector when it comes to AI.”
Geoghegan said that in order to future-proof future graduates, the government should set up a critical skills observatory “as soon as possible.”
“Teachers just want some level of direction in terms of how the children use AI. The children want direction on how they can use AI in a way that effectively does not stupefy them and does not reduce their capacity and learning skills in education,” he said.
Continuing on an educational bent, fellow Fine Gael TD Maeve O’Connell said that AI is already having an impact in third-level education.
“AI is often talked about as a double-edged sword in education,” she noted.
“There are benefits for students with personalised learning, continuous feedback and delivery of education through multi-media. Students have different learning styles and now we can deliver education in different ways to suit them.”
She said that same benefit was not applying to staff, and said she has heard complaints that the age of AI increasing the workload for educators.
“The staff are not getting the same benefits from AI. It is putting increased workloads on them, and we are not focused enough on this and do not talk enough about it.”
“These are the very people on whom we depend to deliver all the wonderful things we are hearing about today to upskill our workforce for the future. It is the staff we expect to do that upskilling.”
O’Connell stated “we are in a post-plagiarism world,” and that academic integrity was being called into question as a result of widespread AI usage.
As a result of AI usage becoming mainstream, O’Connell noted that educators are being asked to redesign assessments.
“Our traditional form of assessment, the final written exam, guarantees academic integrity but is also vulnerable to issues around the use of AI. Staff are having to learn new systems and to do things differently through AI.”
She noted that even if AI is used for assessment purposes, it still needs human verification.
Per O’Connell, one study found that 75% of students were failed by the AI grader and another study of students found that 88% of students queried their AI-generated grade.
“This is in a context where we are facing an ever-increasing arms race with AI technology. There is a race between the detection tools to check whether an assignment submitted used AI and students’ evasion tactics. In the short term, I do not see that the extra workload on staff in higher education institutions will reduce.”
“In fact, we could be facing a number of years of constant pressure to try to maintain the standards and integrity,” she predicted.
People Before Profit TD Murphy noted that the AI age could have economic implications.
The Dublin South-West TD cited a report from the Economic and Social Research Institute, which predicted that approximately 7% of Irish jobs could be lost to AI in the short to medium term.
Murphy said if those numbers were applied to the wider Irish workforce, that would translate to 200,000 job losses.
The ERSI estimates were more conservative than the Central Bank of Ireland’s prediction, which predicts that in the long-term, as many as 900,000 jobs could be replaced by AI.
Murphy noted that over 20,000 tech jobs have been lost in the past year alone and the rate of job loss is accelerating.
“Meta is cutting 20% of jobs. Covalen Solutions is trying to make 700 workers redundant. Oracle is cutting 150 jobs. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have turned the economy into a corporate tax haven where income and wealth are distributed like an upside down pyramid but jobs go the other way around,” he remarked.
“A small number of mega rich US multinationals are booking billions in profits and paying a sliver of the workforce very high salaries and bonuses. In turn, this is supporting over 500,000 low-paid service workers in hospitality, retail, cleaning and childcare.”
Murphy said that inequality existed before the advent of AI, but now the issue is at risk of becoming more pronounced.
“If 200,000 higher paid jobs are lost, or even more, when the AI bubble bursts and the global economy crashes, the wider impact on jobs and workers could be truly catastrophic,” he warned.
Murphy said that “AI still is not profitable, despite all the trillions being speculated on it, and nobody has proven yet that it will lead to widespread productivity gains.”
“What is the government doing to plan for this? Not nothing but worse than nothing. It is cheering on the AI lemmings as they race over the cliff,” he claimed.
“The Taoiseach and the rest of the Cabinet are constantly banging on about adopting more AI and doing it faster even though they know it is going to decimate jobs and worsen inequality. They are sacrificing more and more of our electricity and water supply for vast, empty data centres that do not create tech jobs or protect them from being cut.”
“In fact, they are speeding up tech job losses by creating the infrastructure that the big tech bosses need to replace more tech workers with AI. Every data centre is like a giant Pac-Man gobbling up energy, water and jobs,” he said.
“The ESRI predicts significant declines in household income and increases in inequality as a result of AI, including a 30% increase in capital income to the richest 10%. It is so extreme that even the ESRI is now recommending expanding taxes on wealth and capital. In other words, a wealth tax and an increase in corporation tax and inheritance taxes on the rich. That is precisely what we have been calling for.
Murphy said there was “no chance” of the government taking the proposals on board, however.
“In fact, it is doing the opposite; it is living in the last century and must get its head out of the clouds,” he said.