There's little question artificial intelligence and machine learning are playing an increased role in making business decisions. A 2022 survey of senior data and technology executives by NewVantage Partners found that 92% of large companies reported achieving returns on their data and AI investments -- an increase from 48% in 2017. But as these technologies enter the mainstream, new issues arise: How will they change the nature of workflow and workplace connection? Will they be ethically harnessed? Here's what to consider as AI and machine learning become omnipresent, according to MIT Sloan researchers, visiting scholars, and industry experts.

This decoupling had baleful economic and social consequences: low paid, insecure jobs held by non-college workers; low participation rates in the labor force; weak upward mobility across generations; and festering earnings and employment disparities among races that have not substantially improved in decades. While new technologies have contributed to these poor results, these outcomes were not an inevitable consequence of technological change, nor of globalization, nor of market forces. Similar pressures from digitalization and globalization affected most industrialized countries, and yet their labor markets fared better."

As part of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future's series of research briefs, Professor Thomas Malone, Professor Daniela Rus, and Robert Laubacher collaborated on "Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Work," a brief that provides a comprehensive overview of AI today and what lies at the AI frontier. The authors delve into the question of how work will change with AI and provide policy prescriptions that speak to different parts of society. Thomas Malone is director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence and the Patrick J. McGovern Professor of Management in the MIT Sloan School of Management. Daniela Rus is director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and a member of the MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future. Robert Laubacher is associate director of the MIT Center for Collective Intelligence.

Two years ago, MIT launched the Task Force on the Work of the Future, an "institute-wide" effort to study the evolution of jobs during what the college characterizes as an "age of innovation." The faculty and student research team of more than 20 members, as well as an external advisory board, published its latest brief today, focusing on the development of autonomous vehicles. It suggests fully driverless systems will take at least a decade to deploy over large areas and that expansion will happen region-by-region in specific transportation categories, resulting in variations in availability across the country. Truly autonomous vehicles require complex sensors and computers whose production volume is lower compared with even advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS). And teleoperation, in which humans monitor autonomous vehicles for safety, is likely to be a "non-negligible" cost in light of research raising concerns about business models.

In opening yesterday's AI and the Work of the Future Congress, MIT Professor Daniela Rus presented diverging views of how artificial intelligence will impact jobs worldwide. By automating certain menial tasks, experts think AI is poised to improve human quality of life, boost profits, and create jobs, said Rus, director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) and the Andrew and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. Rus then quoted a World Economic Forum study estimating AI could help create 133 million new jobs worldwide over the next five years. Juxtaposing this optimistic view, however, she noted a recent survey that found about two-thirds of Americans believe machines will soon rob humans of their careers. The economists, who predict greater productivity and new jobs?