The AI revolution claims that it will transform labor. While AI tools offer some productivity and efficiency boosts for organizations, their impact on workers’ rights is desperately alarming.
Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, predicts an unprecedented scenario of rapid economic growth and long-term unemployment, in which AI may drive 5-10% annual GDP growth, while unemployment spikes to 10-20%. The already increasing investment in AI automation is resulting in lower wages, job displacement and deskilling, and, in some cases, the complete elimination and loss of jobs. Ben Scott, CEO, Reset Tech, and keynote at Confluence Overview Effect’s eighth annual Advisors Forum, pointed our audience to an obviously failed economic premise: how can GDP continue to grow when significant segments of the population are unemployed or underemployed with no safety net?
Moreover, the Predistribution AI Lab, launched by the Predistribution Initiative, posits that mass unemployment may not even be the worst of it. AI automation could accelerate a longer historical trend of declining returns to labor, rising returns to capital, and a workforce fissuring into gig and contract work, depicting economic growth that appears reassuring on the surface, while workers and families struggle to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet. This can create a scenario known as ‘Ghost GDP’, where AI-driven productivity boosts national economic output and corporate profits, but the financial gains never circulate through to human workers because human wages are replaced by machines that spend no money. In the U.S., we recently witnessed a record divide between corporate profits and worker pay, which, in part, could be attributed to the AI boom.
This leads our members to ask: How can values-aligned investors protect workers’ rights and the corollary outcomes – improving family well-being, while reducing income gaps?
Gradually, workers are beginning to push back against these impacts. In China, a court awarded compensation to a fired worker replaced by AI. Thankfully, in the UK, over 1,000 workers at Google DeepMind, the company’s AI research lab, voted to unionize over military AI deals, aiming to block the use of the company’s AI models in military settings.
But workers can’t tackle these challenges alone. As values-aligned investors, we are well positioned to advocate for workers’ rights, for the sake of our present and future workforce.
How will values-aligned investors reconcile investments in dual purpose companies that incentivize portfolios with incredible returns and unimaginable social advances, while undermining workers' rights? How can we advocate for enhanced ethical guardrails, transparency, and labor laws that protect workers? How can we ensure that early-career workers access opportunities and displaced and deskilled workers are adequately trained for an alternative future? What livelihood opportunities will there truly be for those that do not want to spend careers in front of screens and simulations, outside incarnate reality?
In March 2026, Confluence Philanthropy and our subsidiary, Overview Effect, launched a call to action: We ask every member institution to outline your approach to technology and AI holdings in your investment policy statement. At the core, we ask you to consider that access to work become a human right.
As you implement this call to action, here are a few considerations to explore, in terms of workers’ rights:
Increase your understanding of the risks and opportunities of tech and AI, including the actual and potential impacts on workers’ rights. The examples we shared are just the point of the spear. What are the ethical, financial, and social consequences of worker replacement with AI?
Ensure that your tech and AI investments are aligned with your values and mission. Identify both positive and negative screening criteria and update your investment policy statement to reflect your position.
Explore and understand: what are the legal responsibilities for employers? What are yours, specifically?
What will tech companies do to protect workers’ rights? Are the companies in your portfolio following already existing legal practices and modeling excellent severance arrangements?
How can your institution use your investable opportunities as a resource and advocacy for the kinds of tech and AI that you want to be part of our collective future?
What excites you about tech and AI? With whom can you collaborate with to influence, advocate, and co-create the sorts of technologies and companies that will truly enrich humanity by protecting workers and offering expansive well-being?
And at home? What’s your institution’s internal position on worker replacement in your own workplace?
Will your institution set guardrails for employee retainment protections?
If not, who will have a stake in the decisions and processes to dismiss human workers for machine intelligence?
Are you able to have board discussions about these questions?
Values-aligned investors have historically been staunch advocates for meaningful and equitable job creation, while protecting workers. Notably, we ensured our investments aligned with companies that created jobs, not eliminated them. Now, more than ever, it is critical that we continue to stand up for workers.
We want to hear from you! Please be ready to share your institution’s plans with our community. And join the Predistribution Initiative, Confluence Overview Effect, and ImpactAlpha on September 16th to explore what investors and policymakers can do to champion workers’ rights in the age of AI. Look out for an invite coming soon.