AIPolicyTracker
Menu

MIT AI Risk Repository · Risk Sub-Category · 72.04.01

Labor Market Disruption and Economic Displacement:

Category: Systemic Risks

Open the MIT Risk Navigator All entries from Tse2025

Description

"Rapid automation enabled by general-purpose AI could trigger widespread unemployment across knowledge work sectors, creating skill mismatches faster than retraining programs can address. Unlike previous technological transitions, AI’s broad capabilities may simultaneously affect multiple industries, potentially overwhelming social safety nets and creating systemic economic instability, particularly in regions heavily dependent on jobs susceptible to AI automation."

From Frontier AI Risk Management Framework (v1.0) (Tse2025), as extracted by the MIT AI Risk Repository (CC BY 4.0).

Classification

Causal entity
AI

Subdomain definition: Widespread use of AI increasing social and economic inequalities, such as by automating jobs, reducing the quality of employment, or producing exploitative dependencies between workers and their employers.

Real-world incidents in this subdomain

Browse all incidents in this subdomain

How other frameworks describe this risk

  • Job loss/losses

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Societal destabilisation

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Societal inequality

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Labour exploitation

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Political instability

    A Collaborative, Human-Centred Taxonomy of AI, Algorithmic, and Automation Harms (Abercrombie2024)

  • Increased income disparity

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Economic

    The Rise of Artificial Intelligence - Future Outlooks and Emerging Risks (Allianz2018)

  • Effects on the Workforce

    Foundational Challenges in Assuring Alignment and Safety of Large Language Models (Anwar2024)

Other entries from Tse2025