Yusril: Law Must Be Adaptive in Facing AI and the 'Gig Economy'

Surabaya – Coordinating Minister for Law, Human Rights, Immigration, and Prisons Yusril Ihza Mahendra emphasised the importance of national law that can adapt to disruptions from artificial intelligence (AI) and the ‘gig economy’, as such developments could alter work patterns, workers’ rights, and privacy issues. “Now, a person faces a system and algorithms rather than a shop or a person,” he said during a talk at Universitas Negeri Surabaya (Unesa) on Tuesday (19 May 2026). “Work assessments are carried out by digital systems that determine the distribution of work, rates, and even access to services.” The gig economy is a freelance model based on digital platforms that emphasise flexibility and independence. Yusril said that the development of the digital economy and AI has transformed conventional employment relations into platform-based systems and flexible partnerships controlled by technology and algorithms. He notes that these conditions raise new problems related to the status of employment relationships, legal protection, guarantees of occupational safety, and mechanisms to challenge algorithmic systems that arrange the work of digital workers. Yusril also highlighted the importance of personal data protection amid the increasingly massive AI development. He said: “Personal data has now become a primary resource in various decision-making processes, ranging from public services to determining access to certain services. The greater the impact of a system on an individual’s rights, the higher the demands for transparency and accountability.” Separately, Unesa Rector Nurhasan said that the development of digital technology and the platform economy brings opportunities for innovation as well as increasingly complex legal and social problems. He stated that regulation must be adaptive and responsive to provide legal certainty while protecting human rights, social justice, and national legal sovereignty in the face of digital disruption. Separately, Dean of the Faculty of Law at Unesa Arinto Nugroho added that the national seminar serves as the opening of the 2026 Dies Natalis for the Faculty of Law and an effort to strengthen academics’ contribution to the development of progressive national law.