The Labour the Law Forgot. The Commodification of Everyone’s Cognitive-Relational Work in the AI Economy
Speaker: Dr Michele Molè, Security Technology ePrivacy Research Group, University of Groningen
Chairs: Dr Janja Komljenovic, Centre for Research in Digital Education, The University of Edinburgh; Dr Karen Gregory, Department of Sociology, The University of Edinburgh
When: 18 June 2026, 10:00-13:00 BST
Where: Seminar Room 2, Chrystal Macmillan Building, The University of Edinburgh
Agenda
10.00 – 10.30: Welcome coffee
10.30 – 12.00: Seminar and discussion
12.00 – 13.00: Working lunch with continued discussion and networking
Abstract
Driving a truck today is not just driving: you perform the cognitive labour (attention, micro-judgments, emotional regulation) that an AI camera dictates and scores in real time. The assetization of higher education illustrates the same race for the commodification of cognitive labour, running alongside the Generative AI race. This seminar argues that whatever job we do, there is a labour the law forgot to protect.
The forgotten labour is a cognitive-relational surplus: the substance of judgment, attention and care produced between people, now extracted across workplaces, classrooms, and consumer profiling alike. What scholarship has called algorithmic management is nothing more than organisational-relational settings commodified as a tradeable service (Boss-as-a-Service) and sold back to the firms that used to exercise it. Learning platforms turn teaching and academic research into rentable assets, producing subjects whose contributions are enclosed and resold under contract and IP regimes that labour law does not see.
Current law cannot see this as labour, and what the law cannot see, the rule of law cannot reach. The GDPR does not see the relational value of data, the AI Act does regulate the relational risks of the technology yet without redistribution and codetermination; finally, labour law regulates the bilateral employment contract. None captures the cognitive-relational work being commodified and the power asymmetries widened when it is delegated, packaged and sold. This seminar asks what protection labour law should envisage in an AI economy where working time becomes a less central measure of productivity, and what forms of collective bargaining or statutory law could reach this goal.
This is a collaborative seminar, not a closed argument. The question all participants are invited to answer during the seminar is: What does labour law owe us (as workers, citizens, migrants) in a spreading AI economy?
About the speaker
Michele Molè holds a PhD in Law from the University of Groningen (the Netherlands) and a Master’s in Law from the University of Milan (Italy). His research focuses on workplace surveillance and on the impact of the market for new technologies on employers’ powers and workers’ rights. He has carried out research stays at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium), the European Trade Union Institute (Belgium), and the University of Warsaw (Poland). In 2026 he authored the monograph "Monitored at Work", published by Kluwer.
For any enquiries, please contact us at MHSES-REI-Events@ed.ac.uk.