AI, labour and property: Rethinking legal regimes in the era of automation

Abstract

This article critically assesses the evolving relationship between artificial intelligence (AI), labour and property. It begins by interrogating dominant narratives that frame AI as a form of intelligence, revealing their ideological underpinnings and drawing on recent scholarship that situates AI as historically rooted in systems of labour imitation and supervision. It then turns to the impact of AI on the nature of work itself, arguing that its introduction in late capitalist economies intensifies the extraction of human knowledge and further obscures the invisible labour performed by the most exploited workers. The article then explores the entanglement between AI and property regimes, contending that the proliferation of AI technologies is facilitated by legal frameworks that reproduce a conventional, individualistic form of property – one that privileges the interests of owners over those of non-owners and users. In its final section, it considers potential legal tactics for reimagining AI beyond proprietary logics, including the possibility of conceptualising AI as a commons.