A woman in charge of training an artificial intelligence chatbot at an Australian bank was fired due to a reduction in the number of employees at the company. In other words, the worker himself has been training chatbots to replace workers. Faced with fierce controversy, the bank eventually decided to reinstate its laid-off employees. However, the incident has led to voices in Australia calling for an institutional arrangement to protect workers in the AI era.
According to the Australian Financial Review (AFR) on the 7th, Australia-based Commonwealth Bank (CBA) laid off 45 customer call center employees in July. As the newly introduced chatbot system replaces a large amount of customer response work, it has decided to reduce manpower.
Catherine Sullivan, who worked at CBA for 25 years, was also fired. After working on the customer messaging team for the past five years, she was notified that she no longer had to go to work as of July 28.
Catherine’s last job at the CBA was to write an answer script for the chatbot “Bumblebee” and test it. Catherine also responded directly to Bumblebee’s failure to answer according to the script during the actual customer response test stage.
Catherine thought that if Bumblebee was assigned to respond to customers, she would be relocated to another department. However, the result was a notice of dismissal. “I never imagined that I would be fired (for chatbot) after 25 years of service,” Catherine said. “I was training a chatbot that took away my work.”
Catherine argued that the management’s dismissal decision process was also inappropriate. She was informed only an hour ago that a meeting was being held regarding her dismissal. Eight days later, the management did not contact Catherine.
The CBA reportedly decided that chatbots will be able to respond to 2,000 customer calls every week, making 45 jobs unnecessary. However, the Australian Financial Workers Union (FSU) filed a complaint with the Fair Work Commission and eventually reversed its decision to dismiss it as controversy intensified in Australia. “There were areas where AI alone could not respond. It was a wrong decision that did not fully reflect all management considerations,” he explained.
The CBA reportedly offered laid-off employees three options: returning to their existing work, switching to other departments, and voluntary retirement.
The incident was recorded as the first official dismissal due to AI in Australia. FSU insists that companies must consult in advance when introducing AI and retrain replaced workers. The Australian government is reportedly considering whether to include related provisions in the “AI National Competency Plan,” which is scheduled to be announced at the end of this year.
Meanwhile, CBA is suspected of firing vulnerable employees in the name of AI. It is suspected that many employees who frequently use sick leave or nursing leave were included in the dismissal.
JENNIFER KIM
US ASIA JOURNAL
