Human-Machine Partnerships in the Future of Work

: Exploring the Role of Emerging Technologies in Future Workplaces

A workshop held virtually during CSCW2021

October 23rd

About the Workshop

Technologies in the workplace have been a major focus of CSCW, including studies that investigate technologies for collaborative work, explore new work environments, and address the importance of political and organizational aspects of technologies in workplaces. Emerging technologies, such as AI and robotics, have been successfully deployed in various workplaces, and their proliferation is rapidly expanding. These technologies have not only changed the nature of work but also reinforced power and social dynamics within workplaces, requiring us to rethink the legitimate relationship between emerging technologies and human workers. It will be critical to the development of equitable future work arrangements to identify how these emerging technologies will develop relationships with human workers who have limited power and voice in their workplaces. How can these emerging technologies develop mutually beneficial partnerships with human workers? In this one-day workshop, we seek to illustrate the meaning of human-machine partnerships (HMP) by highlighting that how we define HMP may shape the design of future robots at work. By encouraging interdisciplinary perspectives, we aim to develop a taxonomy of HMP by which we can broaden our relationship with embodied agents but also evaluate and reconsider existing theoretical, methodological, and design approaches in HMP research.

Background

Technologies in the workplace have been a major focus of CSCW, including studies that investigate technologies for collaborative work, explore new work environments (e.g., boundaryless workplace [36]), and address the importance of the political and organizational aspects of technologies in workplaces (e.g., power dynamics between workers and managers). Emerging technologies, such as AI and robotics, have been deployed in various workplaces [6] (e.g., hospitals, construction sites, public spaces, and offices), and their proliferation is rapidly expanding.

These technologies have not only changed the nature of work but also reconfigured power and social dynamics within workplaces, requiring us to rethink the legitimate relationship between emerging technologies and human workers. What we design for the future of work should conform not only to the expected roles of new work technologies but also to the protocols of the workplace. In particular, identifying how these emerging technologies will develop relationships with human workers who have limited power and voice in their workplaces (e.g., production workers in manufacturing, platform workers [19, 41]) will be critical to developing equitable future work arrangements. How can these emerging technologies develop mutually beneficial partnerships with human workers, when one considers the autonomy of human workers and the power dynamics among workers in organizational settings?

To explore the partnership between emerging technologies and human workers, this workshop bridges the gap between two lines of studies in CSCW, HCI, and HRI: 1) human-robot collaboration (e.g., [17, 33, 38] and 2) worker- centered technology design (e.g., [8, 11, 18]). As technologies attain more intelligence, their influence on workplaces is also becoming stronger. They not only connect workers as a platform (e.g., MTurk workers [15], ride-sharing drivers [26]) but also directly collaborate with workers (e.g., warehouse workers working with autonomous mobile robots [31]). Work is distributed between the two groups, which changes workflow, work characteristics, and the level of autonomy of workers. Human-robot collaboration studies [17, 27, 30, 34, 42] have investigated how human workers work with robots in various settings, such as hospitals [2, 21, 23, 25] and manufacturing factories [22, 29]. These works delved into the collaboration between robots and humans; however, the empowerment or autonomy of workers, particularly workers with limited power, have not been the main focus. On the other hand, worker-centered technology design in CSCW explored how technologies empower workers with less power, such as low-wage workers [7], but the actual partnership between these workers and emerging technologies was less discussed.

By bridging these studies, our discussion of the human-machine partnership will bring new perspectives. Emerging technologies are designed to have not only more capabilities to perform the tasks of humans, but also a stronger social force to recompose the work flow, the characteristics of workers’ tasks, and social dynamics among workers. Hereafter we call this “agency” [39]. In particular, technologically induced job destruction is problematic for workers who have a low educational attainment and a limited voice in their workplaces. This workshop aims to discuss the relationship between workers and emerging technologies including, but not limited to, robots, AI, and voice agents.