AI and income inequality: the danger of exacerbating existing trends toward polarization in the US workforce

Dan Sholler and Ian MacInnes

Chapter 17 in Handbook of Artificial Intelligence at Work, 2024, pp 338-355 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: Certain populations have experienced a decline in job prospects and income, as polarization has been a consistent trend for more than two decades. This followed job losses related to IT-enabled outsourcing and automation in manufacturing in the 1980s. The development of AI will likely exacerbate these trends so an important question will be how to produce policies and technologies that reduce income inequality. We begin to develop ideas for how to do so via an examination of the causes of current polarization, which are rooted in economic and political systems that have de-facto governed technology development. We argue that the increasing capabilities of AI demand a more active approach. This can include union activity and policies related to universal basic income, wage subsidies, unemployment, reskilling initiatives, rewards for workers that are improving AI, and addressing remote work. A key goal would be to increase the bargaining power of workers.

Keywords: Business and Management; Economics and Finance; Innovations and Technology; Politics and Public Policy Sociology and Social Policy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
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