Nobody Is Worried About the Same Thing: AI, Jobs, and the Geopolitics of Cooperation

"It is largely impossible to dismiss employees in Japan." That remark echoed from the Workforce Transformation discussion at the World Economic Forum's meeting on Cooperation and Resilient Growth in a Fractured World, held in Tokyo on 4 September, and it shaped the direction of the conversation. Svaradiva A. D., Regional Program Manager for AI Safety Asia, outlined the session for delegates from Japan, China, and Thailand, representing government, academia, and business. The session's core insight: each delegation feels concern about AI and employment, yet their worries differ.

Two labor markets, two crises

Japan's labor protections have insulated it from the AI-driven layoffs already underway elsewhere — Indonesia's tech sector, for one, has already absorbed real job losses. Japan faces the inverse problem: getting senior officials who have built careers on established methods to trust and adopt AI tools. Several offices are addressing this through reverse mentorship, junior staff instructing their seniors. The approach is simple and it is working — evidence that not every AI transition problem demands a technical solution.

A tax policy problem, not just a jobs problem

AISA brought its own fieldwork into the discussion: ongoing research in the Philippines on how AI is reshaping the BPO and call center industry, and a government training recently delivered in Indonesia on AI's workforce impact, alongside speakers from the International Labour Organization and Windfall Trust. The discussion surfaced a point too often missed — this is a circular economy problem, not only a jobs problem. Layoffs shrink the formal tax base governments rely on to fund subsidies for those most affected. AI does not respect borders; tax frameworks built as though it does will fail. The session pointed toward a more coordinated, cross-border approach to tax policy as a governance priority.

Framing the day

The day's opening panel, "Competitiveness in a New Geopolitical Era," was moderated by Gim Huay Neo, Managing Director at the World Economic Forum, with Masayuki Hyodo, Chairman of Sumitomo Corporation; Chuanwei Zhang, Chairman of Mingyang Smart Energy; and Koichiro Tanaka, Professor at Keio University Graduate School of Media and Governance — a dense and sharp primer for the breakout sessions that followed.

Building on the conversation

Following the sessions, Svaradiva met with Bambang Brodjonegoro, Dean and CEO of the Asian Development Bank Institute, to explore potential collaboration between AISA and ADBI. Further details will follow as that conversation develops.

The convening reinforced a central premise of AISA's work: fractured geopolitics do not preclude coordinated governance. Where AI and labor policy meet, the region's institutions are already finding common ground — the work now is building the frameworks that let that cooperation scale.

Svaradiva A. D. is Regional Program Manager at AI Safety Asia.