Michael Schrage at Harvard Business Review warns his readers, “Stop swearing at Siri. Quit cursing Cortana,” arguing such behavior could soon be seen just as destructive to an organization as ridiculing a subordinate. In the 1993 film, Demolition Man, Sylvester Stallone’s character, John Spartan, received multiple tickets from a wall box that overheard him violate the “Verbal Morality Statute” during a conversation with a colleague. [mature ears only please!] Spartan, who had been awoken from his cryogenic sleep, was not aware of the dramatic changes in technology that had taken place while he had been asleep. We see technological change every day, but we may not be ready for the far-reaching implications machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) will have on society and the workplace.

Schrage describes how adaptive bots enable devices to learn from each encounter they have with humans, including negative ones, such as cursing at Siri or slamming a smartphone down when it reports about one restaurant, though the user was searching for a different eating place. Faced with repeated interactions like this, the bot is likely to be adversely affected by the bad behavior, and will fail to perform as intended. As companies leverage more of this technology to enhance worker productivity and customer interactions, employee abuse of bots will frustrate the company’s efforts and investment. That can lead to reduced profits and employee discipline.

Employees are seeing some of this already with the use of telematics in company vehicles. Telematics and related technologies provide employers with a much more detailed view of their employees’ use of company vehicles including location, movement, status and behavior of the vehicle and the employees. That detailed view results from the extensive and real time reports employers receive concerning employees’ use of company vehicles. Employers can see, for example, when their employees are speeding, braking too abruptly, or swerving to strongly. With some applications, employers also can continually record the activity and conversations inside the vehicle, including when vehicle sensors indicate there has been an accident. It is not hard to see that increased use of these technologies can result in more employee discipline, but also make employees drive more carefully.

Just as employers can generate records of nearly all aspects of the use of their vehicles by employees, there surely are records being maintained about the manner in which individuals interact with Siri and similar applications. While those records likely are currently being held and examined by the providers of the technology, that may soon change as organizations want to collect this data for their own purposes. Employers having such information could be significant.

As Mr. Schrage argues, making the most of new AI and machine learning technologies requires that the users of those technologies be good actors. In short, workers will need to be “good” people when interacting with machines that learn, otherwise, it will be more difficult for the machines to perform as intended. Perhaps this will have a positive impact on the bottom line as well as human interactions generally. But it also will raise interesting challenges for human resource professionals as they likely will need to develop and enforce policies designed to improve interactions between human employees and company machines.

We’ll have to see. But in the meantime, be nice to Siri!

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Photo of Joseph J. Lazzarotti Joseph J. Lazzarotti

Joseph J. Lazzarotti is a principal in the Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He founded and currently co-leads the firm’s Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity practice group, edits the firm’s Privacy Blog, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP)…

Joseph J. Lazzarotti is a principal in the Berkeley Heights, New Jersey, office of Jackson Lewis P.C. He founded and currently co-leads the firm’s Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity practice group, edits the firm’s Privacy Blog, and is a Certified Information Privacy Professional (CIPP) with the International Association of Privacy Professionals. Trained as an employee benefits lawyer, focused on compliance, Joe also is a member of the firm’s Employee Benefits practice group.

In short, his practice focuses on the matrix of laws governing the privacy, security, and management of data, as well as the impact and regulation of social media. He also counsels companies on compliance, fiduciary, taxation, and administrative matters with respect to employee benefit plans.

Privacy and cybersecurity experience – Joe counsels multinational, national and regional companies in all industries on the broad array of laws, regulations, best practices, and preventive safeguards. The following are examples of areas of focus in his practice:

  • Advising health care providers, business associates, and group health plan sponsors concerning HIPAA/HITECH compliance, including risk assessments, policies and procedures, incident response plan development, vendor assessment and management programs, and training.
  • Coached hundreds of companies through the investigation, remediation, notification, and overall response to data breaches of all kinds – PHI, PII, payment card, etc.
  • Helping organizations address questions about the application, implementation, and overall compliance with European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and, in particular, its implications in the U.S., together with preparing for the California Consumer Privacy Act.
  • Working with organizations to develop and implement video, audio, and data-driven monitoring and surveillance programs. For instance, in the transportation and related industries, Joe has worked with numerous clients on fleet management programs involving the use of telematics, dash-cams, event data recorders (EDR), and related technologies. He also has advised many clients in the use of biometrics including with regard to consent, data security, and retention issues under BIPA and other laws.
  • Assisting clients with growing state data security mandates to safeguard personal information, including steering clients through detailed risk assessments and converting those assessments into practical “best practice” risk management solutions, including written information security programs (WISPs). Related work includes compliance advice concerning FTC Act, Regulation S-P, GLBA, and New York Reg. 500.
  • Advising clients about best practices for electronic communications, including in social media, as well as when communicating under a “bring your own device” (BYOD) or “company owned personally enabled device” (COPE) environment.
  • Conducting various levels of privacy and data security training for executives and employees
  • Supports organizations through mergers, acquisitions, and reorganizations with regard to the handling of employee and customer data, and the safeguarding of that data during the transaction.
  • Representing organizations in matters involving inquiries into privacy and data security compliance before federal and state agencies including the HHS Office of Civil Rights, Federal Trade Commission, and various state Attorneys General.

Benefits counseling experience – Joe’s work in the benefits counseling area covers many areas of employee benefits law. Below are some examples of that work:

  • As part of the Firm’s Health Care Reform Team, he advises employers and plan sponsors regarding the establishment, administration and operation of fully insured and self-funded health and welfare plans to comply with ERISA, IRC, ACA/PPACA, HIPAA, COBRA, ADA, GINA, and other related laws.
  • Guiding clients through the selection of plan service providers, along with negotiating service agreements with vendors to address plan compliance and operations, while leveraging data security experience to ensure plan data is safeguarded.
  • Counsels plan sponsors on day-to-day compliance and administrative issues affecting plans.
  • Assists in the design and drafting of benefit plan documents, including severance and fringe benefit plans.
  • Advises plan sponsors concerning employee benefit plan operation, administration and correcting errors in operation.

Joe speaks and writes regularly on current employee benefits and data privacy and cybersecurity topics and his work has been published in leading business and legal journals and media outlets, such as The Washington Post, Inside Counsel, Bloomberg, The National Law Journal, Financial Times, Business Insurance, HR Magazine and NPR, as well as the ABA Journal, The American Lawyer, Law360, Bender’s Labor and Employment Bulletin, the Australian Privacy Law Bulletin and the Privacy, and Data Security Law Journal.

Joe served as a judicial law clerk for the Honorable Laura Denvir Stith on the Missouri Court of Appeals.