TRADE unionists attended the weekend’s Plaid Cymru conference in numbers seeking support for their campaigns, including better regulation of AI and a national public care service in Wales.

Plaid’s trade union section Undeb held a fringe meeting on developing safe and democratic artificial intelligence.

TUC Cymru’s Ceri Williams and UCU Wales’s Vivek Thuppil spoke about the dangers and advantages to be gained from AI in Wales.

“Workers are the data in a management system — and it logs how many breaks you take, how long you spend on the computer and how long you spend on toilet breaks and whether a worker should be sacked,” Mr Williams said.

Psychology lecturer Dr Thuppil, who teaches at Bangor University, admitted that the more he has studied AI, the more terrified he has become. “Algorithms control what content you see on social media, and the tech billionaires will use AI to gain more power and money,” he warned.

TUC Cymru vice-president Sian Gale introduced a separate fringe meeting with Unison Cymru and GMB Wales calling for the establishment of a national public care service for Wales to stop profits leaking out of the country.

Unison Cymru’s Mark Turner used his family as an example of the changed model for social care, which he said was ruinous for people and staff.

“My nan died in 1998 in her own home and was looked after by a council carer; the highlight of her week was the carer’s visit and the chat they had over a cuppa,” he said.

“Over 20 years later, my elderly mum could not look after dad at home and each care visit was by somebody different, who did not have time to sit and chat because the service was contracted out and run for profit.”