Google rushes to Washington to promote AI employment plan before legislation: train 40k workers, collaborate with hundreds of companies to establish apprenticeship programs

ME News Report, April 14 (UTC+8), according to 1M AI News monitoring, Google today convened government, industry, and civil society representatives in Washington to discuss AI and employment, simultaneously announcing three AI skills training programs:

• In partnership with the Johnson Foundation, providing tools to reduce paperwork for rural healthcare facilities to address labor shortages in the medical industry;
• Collaborating with nonprofit organization Jobs for the Future to establish new apprenticeship programs with 100 companies;
• Working with the Manufacturing Institute to train 40k workers in AI skills and expand apprenticeships to 15 new regions across the United States.
  At the event, MIT researcher Ben Armstrong (funded by Google) will release a study exploring how companies can leverage AI to reduce repetitive tasks for employees and promote internal collaboration.
  Google Chief Economist Fabien Curto Millet stated, “AI is not something happening to us, but something we can shape.” The company has expressed support for bipartisan legislation related to workforce development and employment impact data collection.
  A clearer signal than training programs is that Google has brought all parties together before initiating AI employment legislation in Congress, proactively placing its policy framework on the table.
  The AFL-CIO, the largest labor union in the U.S., holds a completely different stance: spokesperson Steve Smith said that any AI strategy centered on workers must be based on protecting workers’ right to unionize, “otherwise they are left to the discretion of CEOs on how to deploy AI.”
  AFL-CIO is currently pushing for AI labor legislation focused on state-level actions.
  (Source: BlockBeats)