Artificial intelligence is opening extraordinary doors. From healthcare and education to science and creativity, AI has the potential to amplify human capabilities and solve problems that once seemed beyond our reach. These advances should inspire optimism. Technology has always helped humanity progress. Yet alongside that excitement, an important question deserves our full attention: what happens when the pace of change outstrips the ability of societies to adapt?

The Warning We Already Had

This is not a new challenge. For decades, economists and thinkers have warned that automation and digital technologies would reshape work in fundamental ways. John Maynard Keynes wrote as early as 1930 about ‘technological unemployment’ and speculated that future generations might work fifteen-hour weeks. Norbert Wiener, the father of cybernetics, warned in the 1950s that machines could displace human labour at scale. Martin Ford updated that warning for the age of AI.

The discussion around Universal Basic Income has been running for just as long. Pilot projects in Finland, Canada and Kenya have tested what happens when people receive unconditional support. The question of how societies manage technological transitions is not theoretical. It has been asked before. It is being asked again now — with greater urgency.

The question is no longer whether jobs will change. They already are. The question is whether our institutions are moving fast enough to respond. Some estimates suggest that up to 300 million jobs globally are exposed to AI-related disruption within the next decade — not all eliminated, but significantly transformed.

The Asymmetry at the Heart of Technological Change

There is a structural challenge that political economists have identified and that democratic systems have consistently struggled to resolve.

The costs of technological change are concentrated. The benefits are diffuse.

The parent whose job disappears experiences that loss completely and immediately. The millions of people who benefit from lower prices, greater efficiency, or new services feel those gains only slightly. Nobody wakes up saying, ‘I saved two euros today because of automation and global efficiency.’ Pain is personal and visible. Benefit is spread across society and often passes unnoticed.

This asymmetry is documented in two bodies of research that rarely speak to each other. Economists describe it as concentrated costs versus diffuse benefits. Psychologists, following the work of Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, point to loss aversion: people feel losses far more intensely than equivalent gains. Together, these findings help explain why societies struggle to manage technological transitions even when aggregate outcomes are positive.

Mancur Olson identified something similar in his 1965 work on collective action. Concentrated losers organise. Diffuse winners rarely do. A society can become wealthier overall while leaving many individuals feeling poorer, less secure and less valued.

More Than Income

The economic analysis matters. But it understates the human reality.

People do not simply lose income when they lose their livelihoods. They lose identity, status, networks and a sense of purpose. The miner, steelworker or bank clerk who loses their occupation often loses part of their story about who they are. The colleagues, routines and rhythms of working life carry social meaning that money alone cannot replace.

This is why telling people that overall GDP will rise has never been politically or emotionally persuasive. GDP does not attend your wedding. It does not replace your colleagues. It does not give you purpose.

Perhaps one day we will look back and wonder why we tied human dignity so tightly to paid employment. But that transition, if it comes, will require far more than economic innovation. It will require new institutions capable of delivering what work currently provides: structure, belonging, contribution and meaning.

This Is a Peace Question

Peace is not simply the absence of war. Peace also depends on dignity, belonging, opportunity and trust.

Throughout history, societies that have experienced rapid economic disruption without adequate support have seen increased polarisation, scapegoating, extremism and social fragmentation. The industrial revolution created enormous prosperity and also gave rise to labour movements, social unrest and political upheaval. Globalisation lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty worldwide and simultaneously produced concentrated losses in communities that generated significant political backlash.

When young people — whether in Warsaw, Nairobi, Manila or Detroit — see their path to a stable livelihood disappear, some turn to black-market economies, others to radicalisation. The connection between economic hopelessness and political violence is well documented. AI could accelerate that pipeline if we do nothing.

The rise of AI presents humanity with a choice. We can allow technological change to deepen divisions, or we can shape institutions and communities that ensure the benefits are shared and that people retain purpose and dignity.

Why We Are on the Back Foot

Politics rewards short election cycles. Many transformations unfold over decades. The costs of preparation are immediate, while the benefits are distant and uncertain. Politicians are rewarded for solving today’s crises, not tomorrow’s. Businesses are rewarded for quarterly results, not social resilience twenty years from now. Markets move faster than governments. Governments move slower than public opinion.

And yet humanity has repeatedly created new social contracts when old ones no longer worked. Public pensions, universal schooling, labour rights, unemployment insurance and healthcare systems were all radical ideas once. They emerged because industrialisation produced winners and losers, and societies decided that stability required shared prosperity. The AI age may require similar innovations.

The impact of this transition will not look the same everywhere. For high-income countries, the challenge may be displaced professional and middle-skill roles. For low-income countries and informal economies across Africa, Asia and Latin America, the challenge is different — not jobs lost to AI, but formal employment that never arrives because AI allows global companies to bypass local labour markets entirely. Any honest global conversation must hold both realities.

Where Human Connection Fits

The challenge of the twenty-first century may not be how to create enough jobs.

It may become: how do we create enough meaning, dignity and participation for everyone?

That is where communities, arts, sport, volunteering, lifelong learning and organisations like PTPI have a bigger role than many people currently imagine. Because communities can deliver what markets cannot. They can offer belonging. They can offer contribution. They can offer the experience of being seen and valued for something other than economic output.

Before we can decide on universal basic income, we need universal basic belonging. PTPI’s global network — our chapters, exchanges, youth programmes and citizen diplomacy — is already building that, one conversation, one shared project, one cultural encounter at a time. That work is not a footnote to the AI debate. It may be the most important part of it.

PTPI’s specific asset is people-to-people connection across borders and differences — something no government policy, tech platform or labour union can fully replicate. A neutral space where workers, students, families and community leaders from different countries can talk honestly about what is changing in their lives.