AI, Human Rights, and the Dignity of Work
Artificial intelligence is no longer a speculative technology sitting at the edge of society. It is already embedded in how we recruit, schedule, promote, create, diagnose, monitor, and dismiss. As senior leaders, we therefore have a responsibility to move the discussion beyond productivity gains and cost efficiency, and towards a more fundamental question: what does AI mean for human dignity, particularly the human right to work?
The right to work has never simply been about income. It is about dignity, agency, contribution, and belonging. Work provides structure to lives, identity to individuals, and cohesion to societies. When we talk about AI “replacing jobs”, we are not merely discussing labour markets – we are discussing the reshaping of human purpose at scale. The fibre of how we form society.
AI is already altering the nature of work in three profound ways. First, it automates tasks at a speed that outpaces traditional reskilling cycles. Second, it fragments work into micro-tasks, often stripped of autonomy or progression. Third, it introduces opaque decision-making into employment processes, from CV screening to performance scoring, often without meaningful explanation or recourse – just cold calculation and matrix.
Taken together, these trends risk turning work into something done to people rather than for the people.
The human right to work is not a guarantee of a specific job, nor a promise of protection from change. It is a guarantee that economic progress does not come at the expense of human worth. Yet today, we increasingly see efficiency framed as a moral good in itself, while displacement, deskilling, and loss of agency are treated as unfortunate but acceptable externalities.
That framing is flawed.
If AI is deployed without intentional governance, it risks creating a two-tier workforce: a small group designing, owning, and benefiting from AI systems, and a much larger group managed, monitored, and marginalised by them. This is not an abstract risk. We already see it in algorithmic management, automated productivity surveillance, and hiring systems that could be very biased.
Human dignity demands more than compliance. It demands design choices that respect people as more than variables in an optimisation function.
From a board perspective, the question is not whether AI will transform work - it will - but what values guide that transformation. Are we designing systems that augment human capability, or systems that merely extract efficiency? Are we investing in meaningful reskilling, or simply assuming the market will absorb those displaced? Are workers given transparency, voice, and appeal when algorithms shape their livelihoods?
Crucially, dignity at work also means preserving meaning. Not every task should be automated simply because it can be. There is value in human (mis)judgement, creativity, care, and accountability – qualities that do not scale neatly, but anchor trust in organisations and institutions.
Responsible AI therefore requires a shift in mindset. We must move from “AI as labour replacement” to “AI as labour partner”. From workforce reduction metrics to workforce resilience metrics. From short-term margin optimisation to long-term social licence to operate.
This is not charity, nor sentimentality. It is strategic leadership. Societies that fail to protect dignity in work will face instability, disengagement, and erosion of trust in both institutions and markets. Businesses that ignore this will encounter reputational risk, regulatory backlash, and talent flight.
AI can be a force for human flourishing – but only if we choose to govern it as such.
The right to work, at its core, is the right to matter. As leaders shaping the next economic era, we should ensure that intelligence – artificial or otherwise – never forgets that simple truth.
Authors
Alex Yip
Alex Yip, CTO, Puritan AI, Vice Chair techUK AI and Data Analytics leadership committee has wealth of infrastructure, IT, Programme management and business transformation experience.
