The Self-Checkout Supervisor Thesis: AI Agents, Portfolio Employment, and the Future of Work

Description: A working paper proposing that AI agents may enable portfolio employment models where individuals supervise and creatively curate AI-augmented roles across multiple employers simultaneously. Examines the structural conditions — particularly the collapse of the capital barrier between employer and individual — that distinguish this automation wave from predecessors. Includes critical evaluation of attainability, inequality risks, and the pipeline problem for early-career workers. Offers seven testable hypotheses.