Expanding Understandings of ‘Work’ in Response to AI

Abstract

The increasing adoption of automated technologies in the world of work results in starkly opposing predictions. Some scholars argue that these technologies could lead to the utopian emancipation of society from economic necessity and meaningless work (Srnicek and Williams 2015, Bastani 2019, Danaher 2019); other scholars warn of the unintended technological unemployment and dystopian social upheaval that these technologies threaten (Ford 2015; Jones 2021; Mueller 2021). In either instance, the increasing presence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and automation in the world of work is forcing us to consider conceptions of work beyond economic necessity: but the drive to remove necessity as a whole from the human condition can lead to unintendedly bleak and inhuman futures, where meaningful work might be made redundant by the very technologies intended to provide it. In response, this paper will critique conceptions of work as paid employment, while also highlighting the limits of adopting wholly technological means to remove economic necessity. I will offer an alternate understanding of work beyond paid employment, as two distinct modes of activity: labour and work. In doing so, I will recontextualise necessity in work beyond economics, and provide a foundation for pursuing meaningful work, both now and into the future.