Ensuring safe and healthy working conditions is one of the employer's most important responsibilities. This can be achieved by adopting appropriate procedures, providing employees with personal hygiene products, working with trade unions to develop health and safety policies, or providing appropriate training. In order to take appropriate measures to improve the health of workers, the risk at the workplace must be assessed. It is influenced both by elements already known about the work process, such as the mechanisation of this process, and by new factors present in the workplace. In particular, digitalisation, algorithmisation of the work process using artificial intelligence systems or nanotechnology. How should the employer realistically operate in the Polish legal reality? The conclusion is that scientific and technological achievements should be used. In this respect, however, it is problematic to determine on what basis employers should acquire their knowledge in this area. It is not a question of analysing all the scientific publications available, even those that do not have an impact on the assessment of risks in the working environment, but of a rational approach that takes into account the state of scientific knowledge in relation to new challenges in the field of health and safety at work. It is the responsibility of the employer to adapt the organisation of work and the personal and collective protective equipment to the new risks in the workplace and to inform the workers about them.