THE UNNEEDED: TERRITORIAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC IMPLICATIONS OF REPLACING HUMAN LABOR WITH ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.71328/jht.v8i2.71Keywords:
Artificial Intelligence, Future of work, Regional planning, Post-work territories, AutomationAbstract
Recent advances in artificial intelligence and automation are turning human labor into a secondary variable in production processes and reshaping how cities and regions are planned. This article examines the emergence of a group of workers displaced from formal employment by technological substitution, described here as workers rendered structurally superfluous, referred to in this article as the ‘inservíveis’ in order to highlight the gap between policy narratives of reskilling and the structural limits of reinsertion. Drawing on a theoretical and critical essay combined with a narrative review of studies on the future of work, local public finance, and socio-spatial reorganization, the paper analyzes how automation affects tax bases linked to employment, urban consumption, spatial segregation by technological competence, and the underuse of infrastructures designed around commuting flows. It then outlines a set of policy responses, including basic income schemes, new forms of taxation on automated production, and the redesign of urban functions, and discusses their implications for regional planning and urban governance under post-work conditions.
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