Artificial intelligence was supposed to wipe out millions of jobs by now. Instead, unemployment has barely moved, programming and outsourcing jobs are still growing, and recent research finds little evidence of widespread AI-driven job loss.
So what’s going on? We look at the possibility that AI is reshaping work less through mass layoffs and more through a surge in solo entrepreneurship. Research by economist Liya Palagashvili at the Mercatus Center shows that AI may be helping people become “solopreneurs”—running one-person businesses with software doing some of the work once handled by junior employees.
That sounds promising, but it exposes another problem: America’s health insurance, retirement plans, paid leave, and unemployment benefits are still built around the traditional employer-employee relationship. If AI is helping more people work independently, maybe our benefits need to become portable, following workers from job to job—or client to client.