Chapter 28: Exercises — AI and Employment

Individual Reflection Exercises

Exercise 1: Automatable Task Inventory Identify your current role or a role you aspire to. List the ten most time-consuming tasks in that role. For each task, assess: (a) Is it primarily routine cognitive, pattern recognition, physical, creative, or relational? (b) On a scale of 1–5, how easily could current AI perform this task? (c) What would be the consequence if this task were automated? Write a 500-word reflection on your role's automation vulnerability and augmentation potential.

Exercise 2: Historical Parallels Interview a parent, grandparent, or older colleague about how their industry changed due to previous waves of automation (computers, robotics, internet). Document: what work disappeared, what work was created, how individuals managed transitions, and what support was or was not available. Write a 600-word analysis connecting their experience to the AI transition.

Exercise 3: The Distribution Question Read a recent news article about an organization deploying AI in ways that affect employment. Map the distributional consequences: Who captures the productivity or cost benefit? Who bears the displacement or job degradation cost? How does the education and income level of each group differ? Does the organization's public communication accurately represent this distribution?

Exercise 4: Algorithmic Management Journal For one week, document every interaction with an algorithmic system in your personal or professional life that evaluates, rates, or directs your behavior (GPS routing, performance metrics, recommendation systems, engagement tracking). At the end of the week, write a reflection on the cumulative effect of algorithmic oversight on your sense of autonomy, your behavior, and your emotional state.

Exercise 5: The Deactivation Scenario Imagine you have been supporting yourself for six months through a delivery platform (your only income). You receive an automated notification that your account has been deactivated, with no specific reason given. Write a 400-word account of the immediate practical consequences. Then write a 400-word analysis of what ethical obligations the platform has toward you.

Group Discussion Exercises

Exercise 6: The Rate Decision Your company is implementing an AI-driven productivity monitoring system for its customer service team. The algorithm will set expected call handling times and flag workers below threshold. Divide into three groups representing: (a) senior management optimizing for cost efficiency, (b) the customer service workforce, and (c) an ethics and compliance function. Each group develops its position; then negotiate an implementation approach.

Exercise 7: The Staffing Decision A hospital has acquired AI radiology software that achieves 94% accuracy on chest X-rays compared to 89% for junior radiologists on similar reads. The CFO proposes reducing junior radiology staff by 40% and using the savings to fund the AI system. The CMO proposes using the AI as a support tool with no staff reduction. Debate the decision from clinical, ethical, financial, and workforce perspectives.

Exercise 8: Retraining Program Design You have been given a $5 million budget and one year to design a retraining program for 500 data entry workers whose jobs are being eliminated by AI implementation at a financial services firm. The workers range in age from 22 to 58, have varying educational backgrounds, and live within commuting distance of a mid-sized city with a mixed economy. Design the program in detail, addressing curriculum, duration, support services, employer partnerships, and success metrics.

Exercise 9: The Gig Economy Debate Divide into two groups: one arguing that gig workers should be reclassified as employees, one arguing that the current independent contractor classification should be retained. Each group must engage seriously with the strongest arguments of the other. After the debate, as a group, design a hybrid regulatory framework that addresses the legitimate interests of both platforms and workers.

Exercise 10: The WGA Negotiation Role-play the WGA-studio AI negotiations. Some students play WGA negotiators; others play studio representatives. The WGA team has specific AI protection demands (as described in the chapter). The studio team has specific business interests in AI deployment. Negotiate an agreement. After the exercise, evaluate: What did each side get? What did each side concede? How does the outcome compare to the actual settlement?

Analytical Exercises

Exercise 11: Occupation Risk Assessment Using the O*NET database (onetonline.org) and the Frey-Osborne methodology, assess the automation probability of five different occupations. For each, identify: (a) which specific tasks are most and least automatable, (b) which AI capabilities would need to advance significantly for automation to become viable, and (c) what the demographic profile of workers in this occupation suggests about who would bear the displacement cost.

Exercise 12: Algorithmic Management Audit Obtain (through public filings, job postings, news reports, or direct research) information about the workforce management systems used by a major employer in a sector you are interested in. Document: what is monitored, how outputs are used, what worker recourse exists, and what regulatory requirements apply. Assess whether the system meets a reasonable ethical standard.

Exercise 13: Transition Policy Analysis Compare three different policy approaches to AI-driven workforce displacement: (a) the US Trade Adjustment Assistance model, (b) Germany's Kurzarbeit and works council model, and (c) Singapore's SkillsFuture initiative. For each, identify the underlying theory of how transition should work, the evidence on effectiveness, and the preconditions for the approach to function. Which elements of each model are most applicable to your national context?

Exercise 14: The UBI Calculation Design a rough UBI scheme for the United States in response to AI-driven employment disruption: specify the payment amount, eligibility criteria, funding mechanism, and phase-in approach. Calculate the annual cost. Identify the economic and political feasibility constraints. Evaluate whether your scheme is progressive or regressive in its incidence. Compare to a job guarantee alternative.

Exercise 15: The Sector Impact Model Choose a specific industry sector (finance, healthcare, retail, media, manufacturing). Map the AI applications currently being deployed or developed in that sector. For each application, assess: likely impact on employment in specific job categories, likely impact on job quality and working conditions, timeline to significant deployment, and available evidence on actual outcomes so far. Synthesize into a sector-level employment impact assessment.

Case Application Exercises

Exercise 16: Amazon Warehouse Redesign You have been retained by Amazon as an external ethics consultant. Based on the case study in this chapter and additional research, develop a set of concrete recommendations for redesigning the fulfillment center management system to improve worker safety and dignity without unacceptably compromising operational efficiency. Your recommendations must be specific enough to be implementable and must address the rate system, TOT monitoring, discipline processes, and worker recourse mechanisms.

Exercise 17: The WGA Provisions Applied The WGA negotiated AI provisions for the entertainment industry. Draft equivalent provisions for a different industry facing AI displacement risk: choose from (a) journalism, (b) financial analysis, (c) legal services, or (d) software engineering. Your provisions should be specific to the AI threat in your chosen sector and should address training data, quality standards, worker disclosure rights, and compensation.

Exercise 18: The Organizational Announcement You are the Chief People Officer at a company that has decided to eliminate 20% of its customer service workforce through AI deployment over the next 18 months. Draft the internal communication plan: the announcement to affected employees, the communication to the remaining workforce, the public statement to media, and the detailed transition support plan. Your plan must be honest about the AI displacement while meeting the company's reasonable communications interests.

Exercise 19: Policy Brief on Gig Worker Protections Write a 1,000-word policy brief addressed to a state legislature considering legislation on gig worker protections. The brief should: summarize the current regulatory landscape, present evidence on gig worker economic circumstances, evaluate three policy options (full employment reclassification, portable benefits model, enhanced contractor protections), and recommend a specific approach with implementation considerations.

Exercise 20: The HR Analytics Ethics Review A colleague in your HR department has proposed implementing a "flight risk" prediction model that will analyze employee behavioral data to identify those likely to leave. You have been asked to conduct an ethics review of the proposal. Develop a framework for the review, identify the key ethical questions, and produce a written assessment with recommendations for whether and how the system should be implemented.

Research and Writing Exercises

Exercise 21: Labor Union AI Provisions Survey Research AI provisions in labor agreements negotiated since 2022 across at least five different unions or sectors (beyond the WGA). For each, identify: what AI protections were sought, what was achieved, and what the negotiating dynamics were. Write a comparative analysis of emerging patterns in union AI governance.

Exercise 22: The Nordic Model Assessment Research the Nordic countries' (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland) approach to technological unemployment — the combination of flexible labor markets, strong unemployment insurance, and active labor market policies sometimes called "flexicurity." Write a 1,000-word assessment of whether and how this model could be adapted to address AI-driven displacement in a different national context (US, UK, India, or Brazil).

Exercise 23: AI Hiring Bias Investigation Research documented cases of AI bias in hiring systems — the Amazon case is one starting point, but there are others. For at least three cases, identify: the nature of the bias, how it was detected, what the legal and regulatory response was, and what the company did in response. Write a framework for organizations implementing AI hiring systems to detect and mitigate bias before deployment.

Exercise 24: The Quality Question in Creative Work Conduct a blind quality assessment: obtain five pieces of creative writing (short articles, marketing copy, or similar) — a mix of human-written and AI-generated, without labels indicating which is which. Evaluate each on quality criteria appropriate to the content type. After evaluation, learn which are human and which are AI-generated. Write a reflection on what this experiment reveals about the quality question in AI and creative employment.

Exercise 25: Future of Work Scenario Planning Develop three scenarios for the US (or another country of your choice) labor market in 2035, each internally consistent: (a) a "successful transition" scenario in which AI augmentation raises productivity and broad-based prosperity while transition institutions manage displacement effectively; (b) a "concentrated disruption" scenario in which AI benefits flow primarily to capital while large-scale displacement produces social strain; and (c) a "governance success" scenario in which proactive regulation shapes AI deployment toward better distributional outcomes. For each scenario, identify the key decisions made between now and 2035 that determine which path is followed.