AI won’t decide Ireland’s future, workers will 

If a generation raised on technology sees AI as a threat, not opportunity, it is a sign we’re mismanaging this transition

If AI genuinely makes us more productive, that productivity can be channelled into something better than leaner payrolls and longer hours. It can mean improved conditions. It can mean more time for life outside work.

The future of work in Ireland is not automated. It’s negotiated.

If we asked previous generations what once felt absurdly out of reach for Irish workers, they might say: “A weekend, paid holidays, maternity leave, even a chance to see your children before bedtime.” 

Most of what was then dismissed as mad, Utopian or economically impossible eventually became reality because workers made it so.

Those earlier transitions remind us of a simple truth: machinery and technology are not the primary drivers of progress, people are. And as Ireland confronts the rise of AI, it’s workers who must again shape what comes next. History highlights how powerful workers can be in shaping the future. Yet right now, the Irish workforce is deeply uncertain about this latest wave of technological change.

Recent polling paints a striking picture of how Irish people feel about AI. A Sunday Independent/Ireland Thinks survey in December found 48% of respondents believe AI will be a negative force in Irish life, with just 27% positive. An Ipsos B&A poll the previous month had similar findings on AI and employment.

Most striking of all: young people — typically the optimistic early adopters of new technology — are the most pessimistic. As journalist Mark Little observed: "The digital natives are jaded by Big Tech companies that promise empowerment but make the future ever more precarious. They sense the hammer of AI falling in the workplace, removing entry-level jobs that were a gateway to a stable career."

This should concern us all. If a generation raised on technology sees AI as a threat, not opportunity, it is a sign that we’re mismanaging this transition.

History tells us their concern is well-founded. According to the Economic Policy Institute, between 1948 and 1973 — during the dawn of the computing age — a 97% jump in productivity was coupled with an inflation-adjusted 91% increase in average hourly wages. Workers and employers shared in the gains of technological progress.

But between 1973 and 2013, productivity increased by another 74% while, when similarly adjusted for inflation, average hourly compensation increased by just 9%. Workers were getting more productive thanks to technological advancement, yet they were rarely the ones who benefitted.

Too often, AI is presented as a tool for efficiency alone: a way to cut costs, shrink headcounts, and squeeze more from fewer people. If that's all it becomes, we already know the outcome. Workers who feel the ground shifting beneath them, with no say in where it settles, do not stay silent forever.

But it doesn't have to be this way. We can choose a path where technology expands human potential, not compresses it — one that safeguards responsibility and protects the judgment, creativity and empathy that make us human, rather than treating them as inefficiencies to be engineered away.

If AI genuinely makes us more productive, that productivity can be channelled into something better than leaner payrolls and longer hours. It can mean improved conditions. It can mean more time for life outside work. It can mean reinvestment in the public services on which Irish people depend. The choice is not between progress and fairness — it's about whether we have the will to pursue both.

Workers have the capacity to organise, to act together, and to insist that technological change benefits the many, not just the few.

This isn't Utopian thinking. The Oireachtas Joint Committee on Artificial Intelligence, in a recent interim report, emphasised AI decisions should be "rooted in human rights and equality considerations". It warned "a key focus for Government must be how to avoid deepening existing inequalities." 

Cross-party consensus recognises AI adoption must be handled carefully. What's missing is a strong voice for workers in that conversation.

The trade union movement has long understood technological change is not something that simply happens to workers — it is something that can and must be shaped by them. Recent research conducted by Amárach among 14,000 Fórsa members showed their priorities were clear: safeguarding hybrid and remote working, more flexible working arrangements, and a shorter working week. They feel as strongly about these issues as they do about pay. And more than eight in 10 say they're prepared to take action to secure them.

The Government has a role to play too — not just as regulator, but as Ireland's largest employer. It can lead by example: adopting AI to the highest ethical standards, while demonstrating the gains are shared with workers and reinvested in public services.

The current public service pay agreement expires in June. What comes next can be a beacon for all employers and workers across the country. When discussions begin, civil and public servants will want to see a fair, negotiated approach to AI on the table, where AI doesn’t replace what makes our work human, but instead gives people more space to do it. 

When workers lead, the impossible becomes possible, progress becomes shared, and Ireland moves forward together.

• Kevin Callinan is general secretary of Fórsa and in his capacity as chair of the Ictu Public Services Committee leads the trade union side in public service pay talks