🛤️ What are the three paths ahead for companies as AI accelerates?

There are three paths ahead for us (according to a huge meta-analysis delving into over 70 authoritative sources– courtesy of the Congruence Foundation, see link here).

1️⃣ The positive scenario (we can call it the‘dream scenario’) ☀️

In this scenario:

New industries grow in areas like care, health, and green jobs

• New industries grow in areas like care, health, and green jobs
• Large-scale reskilling helps workers adapt
• AI is used to support rather than replace people
• Productivity gains lead to higher wages
• Working hours decrease
• There is moderate improvement of wellbeing with people working fewer hours and doing less repetitive or exhausting work

Sounds good, doesn’t it!

2️⃣ The neutral scenario (we can call it the ‘OK but not great scenario’) ☁️

In this scenario

• Jobs are created and lost, but the transition is uneven and difficult
• There are mismatches between where jobs are and where workers are
• Changes are driven mainly by market forces rather than policy interventions
• Wellbeing declines slightly, with the middle class shrinking by around 10–15%

Hum, OK, not great. ⚠️

3️⃣ The negative scenario(we can call it the ‘get me out of here scenario’) ⚡️

In this scenario

• Investment in AI grows faster than workers can reskill
• Machines increasingly replace human labour
• Demand falls as fewer people have income, leading to a cycle of underemployment and unused capacity
• We see wage stagnation and worsening of inequality
• The benefits of AI are concentrated on AI-skilled workers and capital owners
• Wellbeing worsens significantly, with a widespread rise in psychological distress

😬 Please meta-analysis, tell me that this will not happen?

Things don’t look good.

📝 According to the studies:

• The  dream scenario has a 10-15% probability of happening
• The OK but not great scenario has a 60–70% probability
• The get me out of here scenario has a 15-20% probability

This is quite chilling. 🥶

If we do not have major policy intervention in the next two years, we are looking at the neutral scenario for sure, or possibly the negative scenario.

Companies have a significant role to play here.

Some of it is connected to what they need to do under the soft law – and growing hard law – expectations of them.

Increasingly though, one can credibly argue that this entails shaping the systems within which AI functions, to ensure responsible AI use can happen at scale. This enabling environment in turn shapes the severity and likelihood of impacts to come.

Companies that help define and shape what decent work looks like in the age of AI will both meet their responsibility to respect, while ensuring that they can operate as a business in the years to come.

Because responsible AI at work has become a long-term business continuity issue.

If businesses pursue isolated efficiency gains without seeking to strengthen the systems around AI, they risk helping build the very economic and social conditions that will undermine:

• future growth 📉
• talent pipelines 🧑💼 and
• demand for their products 📦

Long story short: you now also have a business reason for putting strong individual and collective action on responsible AI in motion within your company.

So, what conversation can you initiate today to bring human rights into how your company is using AI? 🤖