Making AI Machines Work for Humans in FoW

Abstract

The Future of Work (FoW) is witnessing an evolution where AI systems (broadly machines or businesses) are used to the benefit of humans. Work here refers to all forms of paid and unpaid labor in both physical and virtual workplaces and that is enabled by AI systems. This covers crowdsourcing platforms such as Amazon Mechanical Turk, online labor marketplaces such as TaskRabbit and Qapa, but also regular jobs in physical workplaces. Bringing humans back to the frontier of FoW will increase their trust in AI systems and shift their perception to use them as a source of self-improvement, ensure better work performance, and positively shape social and economic outcomes of a society and a nation. To enable that, physical and virtual workplaces will need to capture human traits, behavior, evolving needs, and provide jobs to all. Attitudes, values, opinions regarding the processes and policies will need to be assessed and considered in the design of FoW ecosystems.