Labour market risks
Unlike previous waves of automation, general- purpose AI has the potential to automate a very broad range of tasks, which could have a significant effect on the labour market. This could mean many people could lose their current jobs. Labour market frictions, such as the time needed for workers to learn new skills or relocate for new jobs, could cause unemployment in the short run even if overall labour demand remained unchanged.
ENTITY
2 - AI
INTENT
3 - Other
TIMING
2 - Post-deployment
Risk ID
mit777
Domain lineage
6. Socioeconomic and Environmental
6.2 > Increased inequality and decline in employment quality
Mitigation strategy
1. Implement continuous and mandatory workforce development programs, including role-specific upskilling and reskilling initiatives, to proactively address the AI skills gap, foster human-AI collaboration competencies, and significantly reduce labor market frictions during technological transition. 2. Establish robust social safety net enhancements and targeted transition support mechanisms for highly-exposed workers with low adaptive capacity, including portable health and retirement benefits, worker retraining accounts, and reform of occupational licensing requirements to facilitate inter-occupational mobility. 3. Design and enact regulatory or fiscal policies that incentivize firms to adopt task reallocation strategies, prioritizing the use of AI for labor augmentation and organizational growth over simple labor substitution, and explore the implementation of shorter workweeks to equitably distribute productivity gains.