AUTOMATION, CONTROL AND FREEDOM: NEW CHALLENGES FOR LABOR AND HUMAN RIGHTS

Novos desafios para os direitos trabalhistas e humanos

Abstract

The expansion of digital technologies and automation has profoundly transformed labor relations, weakening historical guarantees of protection and freedom. The so-called platformization of work and the growing use of artificial intelligence reveal the contradiction between the promise of flexibility and the reality of precarious and unstable employment. In this context, it becomes urgent to address corporate responsibility in light of human rights. This study investigates how automation and the platformization of work challenge the enforcement of labor and human rights, starting from the hypothesis that, rather than expanding freedom, such innovations have deepened inequalities, intensified structural unemployment and demanded a critical reassessment of the roles of the State, corporations, and Labor Law. The research is organized into three axes: I) the historical-legal trajectory of freedom at work, marked by the tension between negative and positive liberty and the impacts of flexibilization and platformization; II) the effects of automation, such as structural unemployment, productive reconfiguration, and the risks posed by artificial intelligence and digital management, as evidenced in cases of precarization; and III) corporate social responsibility from a human rights perspective, highlighting the limits of soft law and the need for more effective mechanisms. The aim is to understand how these transformations affect workers’ substantive freedom and challenge traditional paradigms of protection, pointing toward new normative and policy responses that reconcile technological innovation, human dignity, and corporate accountability.