Voices abound that AI will not replace “us” as people. But it is likely to transform many of the tasks that “we” as humans work on and make a living from. According to the International Labour Organization, in 2025 one in four workers worldwide was in an occupation with some exposure to generative AI. In line with this, many jobs are expected to be transformed rather than eliminated entirely. What is more: AI lays bare the fragility of our present economic system. The way we work which has long rested on shaky foundations, particularly the way we think about the “correct” economics.
Let us see this as the perfect time to rethink our economic system and the environment. Why not plan an economic system that benefits more than just the few? Why should we keep failing to address growing inequality? Why should we accept environmental degradation? Let’s radically challenge the status quo.
What Adam Left Outside the Market
We are facing increasingly frequent and severe heatwaves and destructive wildfires around the world. Yet, we are still pursuing business like we have up to now. Our foundations are in line with economic ideas rooted in the early days of the Industrial Revolution. It seems everyone is rushing to jump on the AI bandwagon with the stated aims of staying competitive. There is talk about improving “efficiency”. Companies are looking to reduce “headcount”. (Headcount is a lovely term for the number of staff in a company.) Companies want to spend less, so shareholders are pleased, as usual. Honestly, it can’t be that we keep watching economic benefits accrue disproportionately to the haves. Who said that those who already own most of the technology and capital should profit the most? Why are we not using AI to bring about true, massive changes?
Adam 3.0
This is not the time to keep endorsing the views of yore. Now is the perfect time to fix the broken system. Let’s briefly take a look back at the true idea of the Invisible Hand of Adam Smith and where we are now.
In his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, Adam Smith suggests in a specific discussion of investment and domestic industry that individuals pursuing their own economic interests can unintentionally benefit society through the “invisible hand”. Business owners invest capital to increase their profits. By investing capital, they may also create jobs, produce useful (!) goods, pay people wages (!) and contribute to economic growth. While a business owner’s primary intention may not be to promote the common good, their ventures can help to distribute income and to improve the standard of living of people working for them.
Permit me to oversimplify here and note that this system works because business owners need workers to do work for them, manual labor or knowledge-based work. If companies can increase productivity and profits while employing far fewer people, the traditional link between private gain and public benefit through jobs, wages and purchasing power may weaken to a detrimental extent. Why are we not hearing more about plans for this? Not from companies or governments?
Europe’s AI Opportunity
Let’s also keep in mind that Adam Smith developed his ideas long before today’s understanding of climate change and ecological limits. Hence, we are faced with two huge challenges: AI has already started to automate and transform human labor. At the same time, climate change is increasingly making regions difficult and dangerous to inhabit.
In our current (outdated) system, the benefits of AI risk flowing disproportionately to those who own the technology and capital. Simultaneously, displaced workers risk losing the income needed to participate in the economy. Adding insult to injury, senior strategic roles may prove less susceptible to layoffs because they involve the trust of investors, customers and employees. Or as the Nexford Team, authors of this article, put it: “It is very unlikely that investors will ever feel comfortable investing in a company managed by robots or algorithms.”
The unbridled use of AI by private individuals and companies towards individual gain is dangerous. Without sustainable national strategies or sufficient corporate strategies on the table now, developments are fueling poverty and the climate catastrophe. Especially in Europe, which is turning into a hot continent and where the building of data centers is threatening more loss of nature and water, we are running out of time.
Pivoting Pandora’s Box
How can we turn this into Europe’s opportunity to harness AI to redesign our economic systems around sustainability? How can we turn Pandora’s box of AI into a catalyst for a green continent?
Pandora was a beautiful woman formed by the Greek god Hephaestus at Zeus’s command. She was endowed with “all gifts by the gods”. Zeus sent her to Earth to bring about the downfall of the human race because he wanted to punish humanity for the sacrilege committed by Prometheus, the thief of fire. Zeus had bestowed a jar (or a box) containing “countless plagues” on Pandora. Then he sent her to Epimetheus, the brother of Prometheus.
Epimetheus was smitten and did not heed his brother’s warning not to accept this gift. When Pandora opened the box, “all evils, worries and diseases” flew out, leaving mankind devastated and only with hope. The analogy is uncannily close to where we are heading if we keep using AI the way we are presently using it. The climate catastrophe is making parts of our continent increasingly difficult to inhabit and threatening food production, while AI is displacing jobs.
Europe’s Edge
In another article about Europe, I wrote about the quality of life and future prospects of the continent. On a global scale, Europe is well positioned. Due to its size and high standards, it is well set to reshape present economic assumptions. Europe would be wise to preserve a high quality of life and meet the demands of the 21st century instead of chasing after the USA and China like a little sister on the playground.
As mentioned previously, “the EU needs to re-align its ancient industries towards tomorrow’s environmental technologies, to re-invent financial wellbeing, to re-invent education and become a positive role model of partnerships instead of domination”.
Green Leadership
- Instead of accepting further job losses in the automotive industry and its supply chains, why don’t the EU and European companies expand the existing Automotive Action Plan beyond clean mobility? Why not pivot Europe’s industrial capacities to manufacture a much broader range of the environmental technologies we so urgently need? We don’t need to compete any longer with others to manufacture the cars of the future. But innovative environmental technologies are needed around the globe.
- Instead of focusing anxiously on using AI to vibe-code anything and everything, why not stake a claim to leadership in environmental innovation? Unlike the search for the “next big thing” after AI, such innovation is essential to our continued existence. Why not start an unprecedented education drive across the EEA? Let’s train future generations as environmental innovators, engineers and developers.
- Instead of propagating an economic model rooted in ideas developed more than 250 years ago, why don’t we instantly start a master assessment in the EEA? Which resources do we have access to, which industries are threatened, and where we can become frontrunners? How can we preserve, innovate and share in a concerted effort? Let’s agree to use AI in a sustainable and eco-friendly way that benefits as many people as possible and nature as well.
- Instead of lowering high European standards and bowing our heads in shame, why don’t we stop embracing an outdated economic order? We are not obliged to accept that wealth and technological power are becoming increasingly concentrated. What would be needed for Europe to treat the climate crisis as a continental emergency? Together we can pivot our economic efforts towards an entirely new economic system. We could actually be working towards equity and fairness.
- Instead of fearing being left behind by clinging to our old-world regulation and bureaucracy, how about doing radical housecleaning. This could be an unprecedented giant reform sweep. Afterward, we can truly focus our efforts on turning Europe into a global environmental steward and a leading innovator in green technologies as quickly as possible?
The heat is on to cultivate the seeds in Pandora’s box towards a green future. Where would your values come in? And most importantly: what and how would you work, if we used AI for a greater purpose?
📸 AI-generated reinterpretation of Pandora’s myth, 2026 inspired by Hesiod’s Works and Days, lines 90–105. (Theoi Classical Texts Library), article copy created with support by OpenAI.