Bipartisan Bill Stipulates Roadmap for AI in the Workforce
Senator Gary Peters, D-MI, and Senator Eric Schmitt, R-MO, announced earlier this week that they had introduced a bill that would require the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to create a workforce framework around artificial intelligence.
Per the bill, NIST would be required to define jobs brought on by AI and other emerging technologies and explain the knowledge, skills and abilities needed to successfully perform them.
More from Sourcing Journal
Peters, who serves as the chairman of the Senate’s Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, introduced the bill quietly on Feb. 8 before publicizing it Wednesday. He said, if passed, the bill has the potential to significantly impact the trajectory of the U.S. workforce as it relates to relevant emerging technologies.
“As artificial intelligence continues to play a bigger role in our society, it’s critical the future of this groundbreaking technology is formed in the United States. The way to ensure that happens is by building a workforce engaged in these new technologies,” Peters said in a statement. “My bipartisan bill will strengthen our nation’s workforce pipeline for generations to come, helping to drive transformative developments in AI and other emerging technology sectors.”
If passed, the bill would stipulate that NIST’s framework include a variety of industries and job areas, like privacy, human resources, information technology, supply chain security and acquisition and procurement.
Michelle De Mooy, program director of the Tech and Public Policy Program at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, said that though the retail industry is not directly named among the affected areas, it will still be impacted.
“[This bill] is talking about things like privacy—so, for sure, retailers will be implicated because everybody is dealing with data. The idea of supply chain security is absolutely going to impact [retailers’] vendors,” she said. “Many companies are using AI for supply chain or inventory controls, and if you’re looking for a workforce that is skilled in that area, then this is talking about those people.”
De Mooy said, if the bill passes, the recommendations that come from NIST will serve as a starting point, but to truly implement any forthcoming framework from the agency, retailers would need to extract the relevant pieces from the framework, then ask further questions about how it can apply to their industry. She noted that for previous frameworks, like NIST’s National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education (NICE), the agency has worked to provide further context and applicability guidelines to those who have requested it.
If NIST develops the framework related to AI in the workforce, De Mooy said she doubts it would be legally binding—in the sense that if retailers choose not to use the guidelines set forth, they would be unlikely to face legal consequences. But if they choose to ignore the guidelines NIST offers up, retailers could fall behind their competitors—and other industries.
“I think that [this would be] putting a lot of industries not only on the same page, but ahead in a lot of ways. In a lot of ways, really, the tricky part is figuring out what matters—what am I really looking for when it comes to this next generation of workers? I think that roadmap would probably be really helpful,” De Mooy said.
Schmitt, the bill’s co-sponsor, said in a statement that the bill, called the Technology Workforce Framework Act of 2024, will help ensure the U.S. workforce remains relevant as emerging technologies change the role of employees everywhere.
“This bill will ensure that America continues to have a strong and increasingly skilled workforce, will utilize AI to bolster American industry, and will incentivize companies to keep their jobs in the United States rather than outsourcing them overseas,” said Schmitt in a statement.
The bill hones in a bit on those who come from nontraditional backgrounds and education. De Mooy said that although she sees the bill as being inclusive in some ways, it may have a gap that could affect retailers when considering supply chain, logistics and manufacturing jobs.
“I would prefer that they were much more clearly pointing to blue-collar jobs in this bill; I think that would be really addressing a big concern about the [idea] that AI will only benefit the 1 percent,” she said.
She noted that if the legislation does eventually pass through what she called a Congress that “seems to be incapable of doing something constructive on technology,” retailers and industry workers may have a chance to share their concerns over the lack of language addressing blue-collar work before the final framework is inked.
“One thing that people don’t always realize is that all of these agencies typically have time for public comment on everything that they do,” she said. “You don’t need some treatise to say, ‘Hey, why haven’t you included my job; why haven’t you included my community?’ When the public comments, I think it can be really powerful.”
