"In a world of robotics, as the digital world increasingly mixes with the physical world, Brooks argues for a new standard for AGI: the ability to do complex work tasks that require other types of interaction with the world. One example might be the work of a home health aide. These tasks include providing physical assistance to a fragile human, observing their behavior, and communicating with family and doctors. Brooks’ idea, whether embodied in this particular job, a warehouse worker’s job, or other kinds of work, captures the sense that today’s intelligence challenges are problems of physical dexterity, social interaction, and judgment as much as they are of symbolic data processing. These dimensions remain out of reach for current AI, which has significant implications for work. Pushing Brooks’ idea further, we might say that the future of AI is the future of work."
Excerpted from The Work of the Future: Building Better Jobs in an Age of Intelligent Machines by David Autor, David A. Mindell and Elisabeth B. Reynolds. Reprinted with permission from the MIT PRESS. Copyright 2022.
The ability to adapt to novel situations is still a challenge for "AI and robotics and a key reason why companies continue to rely on human workers for a variety of tasks."
Autor, Mindell, and Reynolds Authors, "Work of the Future"----
Why the United States lags behind other industrialized countries in sharing the benefits of innovation with workers and how we can remedy the problem.
The United States has too many low-quality, low-wage jobs. Every country has its share, but those in the United States are especially poorly paid and often without benefits. Meanwhile, overall productivity increases steadily and new technology has transformed large parts of the economy, enhancing the skills and paychecks of higher-paid knowledge workers. What's wrong with this picture? Why have so many workers benefited so little from decades of growth? The Work of the Future shows that technology is neither the problem nor the solution. We can build better jobs if we create institutions that leverage technological innovation and also support workers though long cycles of technological transformation.
Building on findings from the multiyear MIT Task Force on the Work of the Future, the book argues that we must foster institutional innovations that complement technological change. Skills programs that emphasize work-based and hybrid learning (in person and online), for example, empower workers to become and remain productive in a continuously evolving workplace. Industries fueled by new technology that augments workers can supply good jobs, and federal investment in R&D can help make these industries worker-friendly. We must act to ensure that the labor market of the future offers benefits, opportunity, and a measure of economic security to all.
The Work of the Future (mit.edu)
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