Is AI monitoring your every action at work?

While many workers worry about AI replacing jobs, another technology is reshaping how employees are supervised: bossware. The term refers to software that allows managers to track workers’ activity, output, and even behaviour.

Bossware became popular after a report by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in 2020 was released. This software utilises AI that may change the nature of workplace and the autonomy of employees.

Cornell University Professor and Author of Data Driven: Truckers, Technology, and the New Workplace Surveillance Karen Levy states: "AI allows employers to monitor their employees in ways they never could before."

Explaining the concept as an example, he explains that in the trucking industry, video monitoring using AI can send alerts if the driver appears to be tired. In an office environment, monitoring of habits, productivity, and keystrokes can be done using algorithmic and biometric tools.

Notably, the pandemic saw an increase in the use of bossware with the shift to remote working, leading to screenshot monitoring and keyboard monitoring.

By 2022, eight out of ten largest private employers in the US were using these metrics. However, according to Stanford Professor Rob Reich, the tools aim at increasing productivity; still, metrics such as the speed at which one types do not necessarily measure the work done.

AI surveillance also denies employees the downtime they need and may further tip the scales on power balance at the workstations in favour of management.

However, Levy proposes that employees be involved in the discussion on the use of technology and be given more autonomy for the company to retain the employees and boost productivity. Reich also proposes that AI monitoring with the best of intentions must be done with caution to avoid a culture of surveillance.