Building Pro-Worker Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

This paper defines pro-worker technologies, including Artificial Intelligence, as technologies that make human skills and expertise more valuable by expanding worker capabilities. Our conceptual framework distinguishes among five categories of technological change: labor-augmenting, capital-augmenting, automating, expertise-leveling, and new task-creating. Only the last category is unambiguously pro-worker, generating demand for novel human expertise rather than commodifying it. We illustrate these distinctions through hypothetical and real-world examples spanning aviation maintenance, electrical services, custodial work, education, patent examination, and gig delivery. While AI’s capacity to automate work is substantial, we argue that its potential to serve as a collaborator, by extending human judgment, enabling new tasks, and accelerating skill acquisition, is equally transformative and currently underexploited. We identify market failures, including misaligned firm and developer incentives, path dependence, and a pervasive pro-automation ideology, that may lead to underinvestment in pro-worker AI. We consider nine policy directions that would change incentives, including targeted investments in health care and education, tax code reform, antitrust enforcement, and intellectual property protections for worker expertise. Institutional subscribers to the NBER working paper series, and residents of developing countries may download this paper without additional charge at www.nber.org.