Your Boss is a Machine: Protecting Worker Autonomy in an AI-Driven Economy'

What is worker autonomy, and why is it morally valuable? How can AI hinder or promote worker autonomy? This project investigates questions of autonomy, good work, and the future of work in an economy permeated by AI.

Project Description

Worker autonomy is under threat from AI. As AI becomes more general, and thus more autonomous itself, in the coming decades, it could replace tasks, amplify human skills, or produce economic and moral deskilling. The first two enhance worker wellbeing; but, economic and moral deskilling threatens to seriously undermine worker autonomy, especially for early career workers.

Societies are at a critical juncture where recent advances in AI could enhance or seriously harm worker autonomy. There are, however, no obvious solutions to that threat. Moral theories of worker autonomy and social scientific measurement instruments were developed in an era before AI, and there are major gaps in the regulation of algorithmic management.

Drawing on tools from philosophy, the social sciences, and law, the project develops a new moral theory of worker autonomy that can address the challenges posed by AI. The framework will be grounded in novel research on the impact of AI on worker autonomy in the UK, and will generate metrics to measure worker autonomy and evaluate regulatory interventions. This work will advance our understanding of worker autonomy and of legal instruments to promote it, alongside our ability to measure it.