Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work
If machines do the work and the state pays the wage, what becomes of our dignity?
By Neil Jordan
Developers of artificial intelligence and tech futurists are prone to foretelling the devastation of the labour market at the hands of AI. Predictions regarding the extent and speed of the decline in the demand for human labour vary, with some suggesting that half of white collar jobs will be lost to automation in a painful readjustment and others contending that almost all human labour will be replaced by technology in the next 20 years. Whether one views such developments as catastrophic or the beginning of an era of efficiency and abundance, there are clearly implications for public policy, such as the effects on governments’ ability to secure tax revenues.
It seems unlikely that all human labour could be replaced by machines. It is hard to imagine having a robot plumber visit to repair a leak or cut one’s hair, and indeed in the short run greater use of AI appears to be driving a spike in demand for blue collar labour, but beyond this, there are good economic arguments for questioning the idea that the human being is bound to go the way of the horse, as this interesting article by Brian Albrecht argues.
Income and Taxation
However, if we take seriously the claim that all, or almost all, or even most human labour is likely to vanish, then some proposal is needed for addressing the issue of how, with the demise of wages, human beings are to secure the means of subsistence. One suggestion is that our needs will be met by some kind of universal basic income provided by the state, funded in part by levies on the profits of AI and tech companies.
There would be very real practical considerations to deal with under such an arrangement: How would UBI be adjusted to take account of changes in the price level or inflationary pressures? If a tech firm had a ‘bad year’, what would this mean for people’s income? How could one fairly take account of differing standards of living in the distribution of universal basic income? Some would doubtless be better off than they currently are but others would most likely see a significant decline in their standard of living. Would their higher living costs be borne by the state – and would this be just?
Questions of Value, Questions of Dignity
There are important moral questions or questions of value to consider, too – questions which perhaps need to be answered before the more practical considerations can be addressed. A world without work (or largely divested of many kinds of human work at least) bears some comparison with the Roman latifundia or the vast plantations of the American south prior to the civil war, where a small number of vastly wealthy individuals owned huge estates while others existed in poverty or servitude.
It might be thought that these historical analogies could be developed to suggest that AI is not to be feared, but welcomed. Analysed over time, they are examples which illustrate the dynamism of socio-economic development: those who worked on those estates were first liberated from slavery and the work done by waged employees who enjoyed a degree of economic freedom. With the advent of technological development much of that work was automated, but the result was not massive, permanent unemployment; rather, new jobs were created in its place. However it could be argued – and indeed is being argued – that this time the latter mechanism will not apply, given the broad applicability of AI technologies across the economy.
If this prediction is accepted, then in a future scenario in which human labour has all but vanished, there remains of course a further, important difference: instead of large sections of society being enslaved by an aristocratic class, it is machines that are exploited for broader societal gain (and the much greater wealth of a few). Nevertheless, under a system in which millions depend for their basic income on a class of extremely wealthy elites whose operations are taxed by the state, we are obliged to ask questions about human dignity.
While a life of leisure funded by the functioning of AI bots might be appealing, many are likely to experience such an existence as stultifying or lacking in purpose. Some need to work, to feel that they are making their way in life, to thrive in a particular setting involving dynamism and pressure. Some require competition and the many social and individual goods that it brings, such as improved performance and personal excellence (as discussed in a recent post here by Ernie Graham). Without such a spur to action, many individuals are likely to feel their sense of purpose waning.
This might not be a consequence for all but it is related to a much wider point about human dignity and certain moral concepts that we take for granted. Where so many people are simply provided with their means of existence without the spur of economic necessity, what becomes of entrepreneurship, innovation and creativity? More widely, even for those that work in jobs they find tedious purely to earn a living, there are questions about freedom and responsibility. Where the individual works to secure her living, there is a greater degree of freedom than otherwise. Each pound or dollar secured by the individual is a mark of independence, of personal sovereignty – as that which the individual has and may by right keep as her own, removes her from the power of the state and dependence on it. The independence – whether from a feudal baron or a tech baron – won by securing property by one’s own endeavours confers liberty and with this comes responsibility. Will both be eroded in a world of greater dependence on the activity of tech companies and the largesse of government?
The Dignity of Work
Being engaged in gainful activity – earning a living and making one’s way in life – brings a form of dignity. This is reflected in social thought of various kinds. According to Christian teaching, part of humanity’s purpose is to work: man is made in God’s image (Genesis 1:27) and God himself undertakes the work of creation (Genesis 1:1). Moreover, God instructs man to work (Genesis 2:15) – and Jesus himself worked (Mark 6:3). The idea that work constitutes part of the dignity of humanity is reflected in the papal encyclical Laborem Exercens, in which Pope John Paul II writes, ‘man, created in the image of God, shares by his work in the activity of the Creator’ and ‘man’s life is built up every day from work, from work it derives its specific dignity’. And if, relatedly, as he continues, ‘at the same time work contains the unceasing measure of human toil and suffering’, that still leaves work as part of the definition of the human conditon. In Laudato Si’ Pope Francis states, ‘Work is a necessity, part of the meaning of life on this earth, a path to growth, human development and personal fulfilment.’ Beyond Christian thought, the perspective of virtue ethics also lends itself to the idea that work is ennobling. Where virtues are taken to be excellences internal to specific types of activity, as in the thought of Alasdair MacIntyre, it is clear that work is a site of human fulfilment and flourishing. Socialist thinking also recognises the dignity of work. Indeed, part of Marx’s critique of capitalism was that in its dehumanising and exploitation of the worker, it alienates him from what renders work meaningful and strips work of its dignity.
Work and Worth
Perhaps lives of near universal leisure funded via the taxation of the activities of AI companies will be abundant, meaningful and purposeful. After all, there is more to life than work and the world abounds with enriching activities, meaningful relationships and worthwhile experiences. Where work vanishes, however, that which provides a spur to much that is best in us is also at risk. Where the meeting of our needs by our own efforts goes into decline, there are important questions about our independence, our liberty, our sense of desert and self-worth, and above all our dignity. When receiving our basic income, will we still refer to ourselves as ‘getting paid’?
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Neil Jordan is Senior Editor at the Centre for Enterprise, Markets and Ethics. For more information about Neil please click here.
The question at the centre of this is the right one. But the argument assumes the work that AI is displacing was already doing the things attributed to it — conferring sovereignty, building independence, giving people real reasons to believe their effort mattered.
For many of the jobs now at risk, that isn't obviously true. Much of the white-collar work AI is currently replacing was already task-based, heavily supervised, structured to limit individual judgment rather than develop it. The gap between what someone was asked to do and what they were allowed to decide was often very wide. The person stayed in the loop but didn't own the outcome.
The piece is correct that UBI trades one form of dependence for another. But employment, for most people, was also a form of dependence — on an employer, on a job market, on an economy that decided what their time was worth. The sovereignty argument works best for skilled, autonomous work. It describes less well the majority of jobs AI is actually displacing.
What gets lost may be more specific than dignity in the abstract. It's something closer to recognition — the social fact of being a contributor, of having a reason to be in the room. That function has been bundled into paid work almost by accident rather than by design. The harder question isn't whether AI strips dignity from employment. It's why, in all the time we've had, no serious alternative mechanism for recognition has ever been built outside it.