AI at work is not only a question of which jobs may disappear. Speakers at a Dublin conference described workers being monitored more closely, moved into lower-paid editing work and left carrying a heavier workload without extra pay or time off.
Watch Desk analysis
What happened
The Communications Workers Union organised the conference in response to what it saw as a lack of union and civil-society voices at the Government’s AI Summit, according to The Irish Times.
Canadian author and critic Paris Marx said some graphic designers and translators are being shifted from original work into editing AI-generated material, sometimes for less pay despite work taking as long or longer. He also warned that removing entry-level legal work could leave fewer people ready to replace senior lawyers later. These are Marx’s observations at the conference, not a measured estimate of jobs already lost.
Demitrios Argyros, discussing findings from the Working in Ireland survey, said many workers using AI reported doing more complex or creative work. He said some also felt their working day had become more intense, without more pay or time off. The article does not give survey figures for those findings.
Why it matters
A productivity gain can mean less routine work, more valuable work, or simply more work packed into the same day. Those outcomes are not interchangeable, particularly if workers see no share of the gains through pay, shorter hours or training.
The conference discussion also links workplace decisions to the longer pipeline of skills: if AI removes junior tasks, employers may need another way to develop the people who would once have learned through doing them. That is a practical concern, not a prediction that every entry-level role is about to vanish.
Our read
The useful question is not whether AI makes work “better” in the abstract. It is who gets the time and value it creates, and what replaces the entry-level work people need in order to progress. A dashboard may count output neatly; it is less good at noticing that the ladder has lost its bottom rungs.
What to watch
- Whether employers share productivity gains through pay, time off or reduced workloads.
- How firms train early-career staff if AI takes over routine work.
- Whether unions and worker representatives get a meaningful role in decisions about workplace AI.
Discussion spark: If AI makes some work more complex but also more intense, should employers share the gains through better pay or shorter hours, or is preserving jobs and training the more urgent priority?
Sources and evidence
- Source update (12 October 2026, 07:00 UTC)
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