What Should We Do after Work: Automation and Employment

Abstract

Will advances in robotics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning put vast swaths of the labor force out of work or into fierce competition for the jobs that remain? Or, as in the past, will new jobs absorb workers displaced by automation? These hotly debated questions have profound implications for the fortress of rights and benefits that has been constructed on the foundation of the employment relationship. This Article charts a path for reforming that body of law in the face of justified anxiety and uncertainty about the future impact of automation on jobs.