AI and employment – it's not about whether robots will steal our jobs, but whether humans will still get paid, says professor

In the future, the key question won't be whether artificial intelligence takes every job, or whether robots – aka embodied intelligences – begin to dominate some workforces. The important issue will be whether human beings are actually paid for the work we do.

That's the view of Professor Joanna Bryson, Professor of Ethics and Technology at the Hertie School, the Berlin university focused on European governance and public affairs.

It's a good question, as AI forces down the monetary value of creative functions – roles that were once definitively human. Meanwhile, employees spend ever longer hours at work, and are expected to take on rising numbers of tasks for no extra pay. Why? Because technology collapses the distance between home and work, but only in one direction.

Thus, work enters the home, the commute, the café, the weekend, and the vacation – in other words, during workers' unpaid hours. So, who ...