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This study analyzes 1,514,950 parliamentary speeches from 33 parliaments between 2023 and 2026 to investigate the emerging political discourse surrounding AI and work. Contrary to expectations that technological disruption would lead to demands for compensation, the findings reveal that enablement and investment dominate the conversation, while regulation and training are also significant but less emphasized. The research highlights a fundamental political divide over the implications of AI for labor, with varying stances on whether to embrace or restrict technological advancement.
Political debates on AI and work are less about compensation for disruption and more about whether to enable or govern technological change, revealing deep ideological divides among parties.
A new politics of artificial intelligence and work is taking shape across party systems, but comparative politics has yet to map it. Using 1,514,950 parliamentary speeches from 33 parliaments (2023-2026), we show this politics follows a different logic than political economy expects. Research anticipates that technological disruption generates demands for compensation; instead, compensation accounts for just 2.3% of response-frame mentions, while enablement and investment dominate (55.2%), regulation and restriction follow (21.8%), and training (20.6%) appears at similar rates across families. Parties disagree instead over what AI means for work and how far this technology should be restrained. The mainstream and radical right support unrestricted enablement; the left is critical but divided on remedy. Social democrats stay adoption-oriented; greens split evenly. The radical left is the clearest force for restriction. The AI conflict thus concerns not compensation after disruption, but whether politics should enable technological change or govern its trajectory.
