AI should empower, not control

'Simulate a role-play conversation. You are the management who has issued a warning. I am the union representative who assists, and my goal is to have the warning withdrawn.'

The above is a prompt that the union and work environment representatives at Finansforbundet in Nordea's seminar had to write in ChatGPT or Copilot in order to be better prepared for critical conversations.

The gain must benefit the employees

"The 2030 strategy means that Nordea will invest in artificial intelligence. Here it is important for us to offer ourselves and be relevant," said president Kasper Skovgaard Pedersen as an introduction to the seminar. Here, both opportunities and dilemmas were discussed, and the union representatives were given the chance to test the possibilities of AI in practice with fictitious exercises.

"You can achieve more if you implement AI in the right way. The gain is not that great yet, but I would like to use the opportunity to discuss how we can use the opportunity to shape a different working life. In the banking sector, we have the second highest work pressure. It is absolutely crucial that the employees benefit if some procedures and tasks are made easier," Kasper Skovgaard Pedersen emphasized.

Not new tools, but a whole new toolbox

At the seminar, there were several debates between invited experts with different approaches to artificial intelligence.

One of them was Steen Lund Olsen, vice president of Finansforbundet, who talked about the data that employers are increasingly collecting about their employees:

"At Finansforbundet, we are regularly asked why we are interested in data. I call it classic trade union material that has just become digital instead of being analogue. We must use AI wisely, so that technology empower us, but does not control us. With AI, we have not only gained new tools – no, we have a whole new toolbox with a lot of new tools in it."