.svg)
A response to Sarah O'Connor's "Pity the policymakers in the AI jobs tsunami"
Sarah O'Connor's recent Financial Times piece brilliantly captures the predicament facing policymakers today: standing on a dark beach, unable to tell if the incoming AI wave will sweep everyone away or merely tickle our toes. As co-founder of The Horizon Institute, I've been grappling with this same uncertainty—but I believe our networked approach offers a way to navigate these murky waters that traditional institutions simply cannot match.
O'Connor rightly points out the contradictory signals we're seeing. The IMF warns of a tsunami, Ford's CEO predicts half of white-collar jobs will vanish, yet Danish studies show minimal impact so far. AI threatens junior lawyers' jobs, yet their salaries are surging. Computer science graduates—the supposed builders of our AI future—struggle to find work while their tools automate their own apprenticeships away.
Traditional policymaking fails here because it relies on centralized prediction and prescription. As O'Connor notes, "coal to code" programs failed spectacularly because policymakers guessed wrong about future demand. But what if we didn't have to guess from the center? What if we could sense changes as they happen, across thousands of workplaces simultaneously?
At The Horizon Institute, we're building something radically different: a distributed sensing and response network that operates at the speed of technological change, not bureaucratic planning cycles. Here's how it addresses the challenges O'Connor identifies:
Instead of waiting for quarterly statistics or academic studies, our network includes workers, employers, educators, and technologists across every time zone. When a Singapore developer notices AI tools changing their workflow at 2 AM, that insight reaches a London policy expert by morning and a Silicon Valley educator by their afternoon. We don't guess about waves—we have thousands of sensors in the water.
O'Connor praises Sweden's approach of letting workers choose their own training paths. We take this further. Through our guild structure, workers don't just choose from existing options—they co-create new pathways with peers facing similar transitions.
A graphic designer noticing AI encroachment doesn't get shipped to a generic "reskilling" program. Instead, they connect with other designers globally who are experimenting with human-AI collaboration models, developing new service offerings that leverage rather than compete with AI. The best innovations get documented, tested, and shared across the network.
Traditional policy takes years to design, implement, and evaluate. By then, the technology has moved on. Our network runs hundreds of micro-experiments simultaneously. When 50 freelance writers in our network test different approaches to AI collaboration, we learn in weeks what would take a government program years to discover. Successful strategies spread organically through the network, unsuccessful ones die quickly.
O'Connor argues that "workers themselves are probably best placed to see the ripples of danger and opportunity." Absolutely right—but individual workers shouldn't have to navigate alone. Our model provides each member access to the collective intelligence of thousands of peers worldwide, while maintaining their agency to choose their own path.
Let me share how this works in practice:
The Coding Bootcamp Evolution: While traditional coding bootcamps close as O'Connor notes, our network members are pioneering "AI-augmented development" workshops. These don't teach coding from scratch but help experienced developers leverage AI tools effectively. The curriculum evolves weekly based on member feedback, not yearly planning cycles.
The Legal Services Transformation: Instead of predicting whether AI will replace junior lawyers, our legal guild members are actively experimenting with new service models. Some are creating "AI-supervised legal services" for routine work at lower cost. Others are developing premium "fully human" services for complex matters. The market, not policymakers, will determine which succeeds.
The Creative Resistance Network: Our creative professionals aren't waiting to be displaced. They're forming cooperatives that guarantee human-made content, developing authentication systems for non-AI work, and creating new hybrid roles that no policymaker could have imagined.
O'Connor's call for better social protection for independent workers resonates deeply. Our network doesn't just help people navigate change—it's building mutual support systems for the fluid work patterns emerging. Members contribute to shared emergency funds, create peer mentorship programs, and develop portable benefit models that travel with workers across projects and borders.
The AI wave is coming—whether tsunami or trickle, we cannot know. But we don't need perfect prediction if we have perfect adaptation. By creating networks that sense change in real-time, enable rapid experimentation, and support worker agency with collective intelligence, we can help people find their footing regardless of what comes.
As O'Connor wisely concludes, the best policy is "neither to become paralysed, nor to become prescriptive." Our networked guild model embodies this principle: always sensing, always adapting, always supporting, but never dictating.
Policymakers don't need pity—they need partners. Partners who can operate at the speed of technological change, who trust workers to lead their own transitions, and who build support systems as fluid as the future of work itself. That's what we're building at The Horizon Institute.
The question isn't whether the AI wave will knock us down. The question is whether we'll face it as isolated individuals or as a networked intelligence capable of helping each other surf whatever comes our way.
Want to join our network and help shape the future of work? Visit horizoninstitute.org or reach out at contact@horizoninstitute.org. We're particularly seeking members in sectors experiencing rapid AI transformation.
The author is co-founder of The Horizon Institute, a networked guild organization pioneering new models of collective intelligence for technology governance and workforce adaptation.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)