Publication Details
Abstract
The paper examines how artificial intelligence (AI) affects human capital by disentangling the mechanisms through which AI can both reinforce and erase it. The main objective is to identify and systematize the channels of AI's impact on human capital and to assess their relevance for transition economies, with a particular focus on Uzbekistan. The study relies on a narrative review of recent literature in the fields of the economics of education, labor markets, human resource management and digitalization. The findings show that AI expands educational opportunities, creates demand for new bundles of skills and increases the efficiency of human capital use within organizations. At the same time, AI accelerates the obsolescence of certain competencies, weakens the signaling role of educational credentials, distorts practical learning and tacit knowledge transmission and may amplify inequalities in human capital. A typology of trajectories linking AI development with the quality of human capital and institutions is proposed. Within this framework, the paper discusses key opportunities and risks for Uzbekistan, where rapid digitalization coexists with quality challenges in education and pronounced internal disparities in human capital.