FW-HTF-P Shaping Technology and Institutions for the Work of the Future

人类技术前沿的未来工作(FW-HTF)项目将使麻省理工学院的未来工作计划进入其研究议程的第二阶段，重点是几个行业中的特定新兴技术，以及工人在工作场所的经验。由此产生的研究将阐明如何塑造技术来增强工人，以及如何在面对技术变革时为工人提供最好的支持。目前，关于新兴人工智能技术是如何被开发和采用的，它们如何影响公司业绩，以及它们如何改变工作性质、工作组织以及工人成功和进步所需的技能，国际上缺乏比较分析。这项研究将在跨国比较的背景下解决这一需求，即面对工作场所引入与人工智能相关的新技术，工作、技能和培训性质的变化需要强有力的数据和见解。同时，这项研究将进一步加深对工人对工作场所新技术的看法的集体理解，以及现有工人今天在工作场所接受的教育和培训的类型。这些跨国比较数据和见解最终将支持行业、政府和劳工等制定政策和战略，既促进对工人的创新和投资，也促进共享繁荣。研究将集中在工作场所的两项与人工智能相关的技术及其对工作和工人的影响：一项与更传统的制造业相关工作更相关；另一项将围绕基于软件的人工智能，主要是机器学习的应用。在前者方面，研究重点将放在协作机器人技术上，这一领域推动的是“增强智能”的愿景，而不是人工智能。我们在工业环境中将协作机器人定义为能够安全地在靠近人类的情况下操作而不需要停止的机器人，它提供了一个机会，利用人类和机器人的相对优势来完成两者都不能单独完成的事情。这笔规划赠款将使研究人员能够开发强大的研究方法和工具(半结构化访谈、调查、案例研究)，将协作机器人作为一个案例在跨多个地区的行业内使用。然后，通过创建一个跨国家的研究合作伙伴网络，可以在技术、行业和地理上扩大范围和规模。这一奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This Future of Work at the Human Technology Frontier (FW-HTF) project will enable the MIT Work of the Future initiative to advance into a second phase of its research agenda, focused on specific emerging technologies within several industries, and worker experiences in the workplace. The resulting studies will shed light on how technology might be shaped to augment workers and how workers can be best supported when confronted with technological change. Currently, there is a paucity of international comparative analysis of how emerging AI technologies are being developed and adopted, how they impact firm performance and how they are changing the nature of work, the organization of work and the skills required for workers to succeed and advance. This research will address this need for robust data and insights in a cross-country comparative context on the changing nature of work, skills and training in the face of the introduction of new AI-related technologies in the workplace. At the same time, the research will further the collective understanding of workers’ perspective on new technology in the workplace, as well as the types of education and training incumbent workers are receiving today in the workplace. These cross-national comparative data and insights will ultimately support industry, government and labor among others, in developing policies and strategies that both promote innovation and investments in workers and shared prosperity.The research will focus on two AI-related technologies in the workplace and the implications for work and workers: one that is more relevant for more traditional manufacturing-related work; and another that will be around software-based artificial intelligence, largely in the application of machine learning. With respect to the former, the research will focus on collaborative robotics, which promote a vision of “augmented intelligence” rather than artificial intelligence. Collaborative robots, which we define in the industrial context as robots that can safely operate in close proximity to humans without being required to stop, provide an opportunity to leverage the relative strengths of humans and robots to do what neither can do alone. This planning grant will enable researchers to develop robust research methodologies and tools (semi-structured interviews, surveys, case studies) that examine the use of collaborative robotics as one case within an industry across multiple geographies. This can then be expanded in scope and scale across technologies, industries and geographies through the creation of a cross-national network of research partners.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.