Reconstructing work: Automation, artificial intelligence, and the essential role of humans

Will pessimistic predictions of the rise of the robots come true? Will humans be made redundant by artificial intelligence (AI) and robots, unable to find work and left to face a future defined by an absence of jobs? Or will the optimists be right? Will historical norms reassert themselves and technology create more jobs than it destroys, resulting in new occupations that require new skills and knowledge and new ways of working? The debate will undoubtedly continue for some time. But both views have been founded on a traditional conception of work as a collection of specialized tasks and activities performed mostly by humans. As AI becomes more capable and automates an ever-increasing proportion of these tasks, is it now time to consider a third path? Might AI enable work itself to be reconstructed? It is possible that the most effective use of AI is not simply as a means to automate more tasks, but as an enabler to achieve higher-level goals, to create more value. The advent of AI makes it possible--indeed, desirable--to reconceptualize work, not as a set of discrete tasks laid end to end in a predefined process, but as a collaborative problem-solving effort where humans define the problems, machines help find the solutions, and humans verify the acceptability of those solutions.