Artificial Intelligence, Creative Labor, and Social Choice: Power Asymmetries and Sociological Implications

Generative artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping creative labor and other knowledge-intensive domains, raising fundamental sociological questions about power, inequality, and governance. This article integrates social choice theory, political economy, and labor sociology to examine how AI reorganizes labor and authority along three axes: Capital versus Labor, Global North versus Global South, and Human versus Algorithmic Creativity. Drawing on mixed evidence from labor markets, global patent trends, and creative industries, the study shows that AI outcomes are not technologically predetermined but mediated by institutional constraints and collective action. Using Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem as an analytic analogy, the paper demonstrates how competing stakeholder preferences generate unavoidable trade-offs between efficiency and equity, often reflecting underlying power asymmetries. Empirical analyses illustrate how unions, state strategies, and contractual governance can shape AI’s distributional effects. The article concludes that deliberate institutional design is essential to ensure AI augments human capabilities rather than exacerbating inequality.