Jul 31 2024
Amanda DeMatteis: Hi, Josh.
Josh Goodbaum: Hi, Amanda. What are we talking about today?
DeMatteis: I thought we could talk about artificial intelligence. We’re seeing it virtually everywhere. Whether it’s ChatGPT, Google has its own AI, I think Apple is coming out with its own AI – it’s everywhere and seems to be kind of taking over the world as we know it. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing we’ll leave for our viewers to debate on their own. But what I’m wondering is how this intersects with employment law. Specifically: Could we rely on AI to start to do our jobs for us?
Goodbaum: Yeah, great question and one a lot of people are asking. And I think, Amanda, that there’s actually two questions here. The first question, maybe the most pressing is: Can I be fired if I use AI to help me do my job? And the second is: Is it a good idea, even if I won’t be fired, for me to use AI to do my job?
Let’s take the questions in order.
First: Can I be fired for using AI to help me at work? Well, if you’re an at-will employee, as the vast majority of employees are, you can be terminated for any reason or no reason at all, so long as it’s not an unlawful one. And it’s not unlawful to terminate somebody because of the means they decide to use to do their job. In other words, it’s not protected activity to decide to use AI to help you do your job. And therefore, you can be terminated lawfully for deciding to do it.
Now, will you be terminated? Are you likely to be terminated for using AI?
Well, that, I think, gets us to our second question: Is it a good idea? AI tools can be extremely useful – if they’re used responsibly. Now, remember the possibility of what the tech experts call “hallucinations.” AI sometimes just makes stuff up. So, you need to be using AI chatbots with guardrails in place, with safeguards, and using them in areas where you think it will be most useful and effective.
Remember also that many of the most popular publicly available AI chatbots – think ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini – they save and potentially use all of the user inputs. In other words, they don’t promise to keep what you tell them confidential.
A lot of the time that won’t matter if you’re just asking them to write a poem about your dog or a joke or, you know, tell you a story or help you with a turn of phrase, that probably isn’t important. But if you disclose your employer’s confidential business information or even their trade secrets, you could be opening yourself up to liability beyond just your own termination, especially if the information you’ve disclosed is very sensitive and very valuable. So, you want to proceed with caution here. And if you want to make sure you’re absolutely safe, don’t use AI to assist you in doing your job without first talking about it with your boss and getting your boss’s approval.
DeMatteis: Really good advice. So interesting how this is intersecting with employment law! We appreciate you watching, and we’ll see you next time. Take care.
Posted by Garrison, Levin-Epstein, Fitzgerald & Pirrotti, P.C. in Commentary
Tagged Amanda DeMatteis, Joshua Goodbaum
