The Distribution Problem (Boltanski Reading)

The distribution problem names the uncomfortable structural fact that AI's benefits and costs are not distributed evenly across the population of affected workers. Those with strong institutional support, economic security, and access to mentoring navigate the transition more effectively than those without. The democratization of capability is real but partial: the tool is universally available; the conditions under which the tool can be used productively are not. Read through Boltanski's framework, the distribution problem is not a feature of the technology but of the social arrangements within which technology is deployed — and addressing it requires intervention at the level of those arrangements rather than at the level of individual adaptation.