If AI will radically transform work — and evidence suggests it will, even if the timing and modes are uncertain — what tools do we have to govern this transition? We explore three approaches: universal basic income, lifelong learning and cooperative models of technology ownership.
Universal Basic Income (UBI) is the idea that every citizen receives an unconditional periodic payment, sufficient to cover basic needs, regardless of work or income. It is not a new idea — Thomas Paine proposed it in 1797 — but AI has given it urgency. If traditional work becomes less available or more precarious, UBI could provide a safety net that allows people to live with dignity, train, volunteer or start businesses.
Results from UBI experiments are promising. The Finnish pilot programme (2017-2018) showed that UBI recipients did not work less — some actually worked more — but had significantly lower levels of stress, anxiety and health problems. The Stockton, California experiment (2019-2021) showed similar results: recipients found full-time employment at twice the rate of the control group.
Lifelong learning (reskilling and upskilling) is the most frequently cited response by governments and companies. The idea is that workers whose tasks are automated can be trained for new roles. But reality is more complex. Training works when new roles exist, are accessible and offer comparable conditions. Training a fifty-year-old accountant as a programmer in six months is neither realistic nor desirable. And the responsibility for training falls too often on the individual, not on the companies that benefit from automation or the state.
A third approach, less discussed but potentially transformative, is cooperative technology ownership. Instead of concentrating AI benefits in the hands of big tech shareholders, cooperative models propose that workers, communities and the public can own and govern AI systems. Platform cooperativism is a movement creating alternatives to algorithm-controlled gig economies: cooperatives of delivery riders, freelancers, domestic workers who own and manage the platforms they work on.
None of these approaches is sufficient alone. UBI without training risks creating a class of passive recipients. Training without social protection leaves transitions uncovered. Cooperative ownership without regulation cannot compete with corporations. Integrated approaches are needed, and above all, democratic processes to collectively decide which future of work we want to build.