Human rights in the age of

HUMAN RIGHTS IN THE AGE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Rights to work, an adequate standard of living
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“
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right to work, which includes the right of everyone 
to the opportunity to gain his living by work which he freely chooses or accepts, and will take appropriate 
steps to safeguard this right. The steps to be taken by a State Party to the present Covenant to achieve 
the full realization of this right shall include technical and vocational guidance and training programmes, 
policies and techniques to achieve steady economic, social and cultural development and full and productive 
employment under conditions safeguarding fundamental political and economic freedoms to the individual.” 
- Article 6 of the ICESCR
“
The States Parties to the present Covenant recognize the right of everyone to an adequate standard of 
living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous 
improvement of living conditions.” - Article 11 of the ICESCR
Although the right to work does not constitute the absolute and unconditional right to obtain employment, it 
does require states to work toward achieving full employment.
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The role of AI in the automation of jobs could 
poses a real threat to the right to work; it may prevent some people from accessing the labor market in the first 
place. Automation has resulted in job loss in certain sectors, and AI is widely predicted to accelerate this trend. 
Although there is significant disagreement as to the extent that job automation will be achieved, there is no 
doubt that AI will result in some shifts in the labor market, both through job creation and job destruction.
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Looking forward: If automation does shift the labor market significantly, and large numbers of people 
cannot find jobs, they will struggle to provide for themselves and their families. Researchers are 
exploring ways to ensure people can maintain an adequate standard of living with volatility in the 
labor market. One approach is a universal basic income, a fixed income that governments provide. 
Canada, Finland, and California are all testing out basic income schemes, and more trials are planned 
in other countries. 
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Job automation may bring about a range of challenges that governments will have to address to ensure an 
adequate standard of living. In the U.S., the government uses automated decision-making systems in programs 
to address poverty, for everything from eligibility for government-funded health care to food assistance.
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During 
his 2017 visit to the U.S., the UN Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights found that city 
authorities across the country are using automated systems to match the homeless population with available 
services. These systems use traditional deterministic statistical algorithms to assign a homeless respondent 
a “vulnerability score” and then connect the person to appropriate housing opportunities.
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The existence of 
such systems raises important questions about automating these crucial decisions, but at the very least, 
they produce traceable outcomes. However, if there is a shift to using ML, the inherent lack of transparency 
and explainability of ML could make automated decisions about the provision of public service something 
that neither the government agency tasked with making the decision nor the public fully understands.
97 Articles 23 and 25 of the UDHR, Articles 6, 7, 11 of the ICESCR
98 See http://hrlibrary.umn.edu/gencomm/escgencom18.html
99 See https://www.technologyreview.com/s/610005/every-study-we-could-find-on-what-automation-will-do-to-jobs-in-one-chart/. 
100 Leonid Bershidsky, “Finland’s Basic Income Test Wasn’t Ambitious Enough,” Bloomberg Opinion, April 26, 2018, https://www.bloomberg.com/view/
articles/2018-04-26/finland-s-basic-income-experiment-was-doomed-from-the-start, Chis Weller, “One of the biggest VCs in Silicon Walley is launching 
an experiment that will gie 3,000 people free money until 2022,” Business Insider, September 21, 2017,https://www.businessinsider.com/y-combinator-
basic-income-test-2017-9, and Jordan Pearson, “Basic Income Is Already Transforming Life and Work In a Postindustrial Canadian City,” Motherboard, 
April 23, 2018, https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/paxzv8/hamilton-canada-basic-income-pilot-future-work-v25n1.
101 Eubanks, “The Digital Poorhouse.”
102 “Statement on Visit to the USA, by Professor Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights,” Office 
of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, December 15, 2017, https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.
aspx?NewsID=22533&LangID=E.

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