Work Awesome: Interview with Erin Winick of MIT Tech Review

Erin Winick is the Associate Editor Future of Work at the MIT Tech Review, and I feel like I already know her because of her work there, but in actuality I will be meeting her for the first time at the upcoming Work Awesome conference on 6 December.

I had the chance to ask her a few questions about the panel she will be moderating at Work Awesome:

Stowe Boyd | In the past, I have characterized the split in the discourse about AI’s impact on the workforce as a face-off between the ‘Anotherists’, those who say ‘AI is just another wave of technological advance, like those in the past, and ultimately new jobs will be created to employ those initially displaced by AI’, and the ‘Otherists’, who say ‘AI is different from earlier waves of technological advance, since AI seeks to substitute for human reasoning, and so, it may not be the case that those displaced will find new work’. Where do you fall in this debate?

Erin Winick | I think it depends on the area of work we are talking about. AI is not a one size fits all technology. There are certain things it is much better at than others, meaning different categories of jobs will be affected at varying speeds and scales. Some people, like writers who wrote data based simple stories like sports or financial reports, have already been replaced by technology in many areas. Other like politicians or artists haven’t seen too much change to their work yet.

For me I think some people will definitely be out of work, while in other categories, people will migrate to new jobs. Companies often tout that they are excited these new technologies will allow people to move into new more creative roles. But the question is whether the companies will see economic benefit from that or if letting the workers go is the better option for them. We have yet to definitely see what their choice will be. In a tight labor market, they are more likely to try to hold onto them.

I think investing in training the workers that want to be trained for new roles now is the right choice. I’ve learned firsthand that not everyone will want it, but beginning to prepare now for increased technological change is the right move.

SB I’ve said that ‘we will have to learn to dance with the robots’. One trend is AI augmenting human work, as opposed to simply eliminating it, like a composer who might use AI to generate a few hundred musical themes, which are then explored and embellished in the more conventional way. Thoughts?

EW I definitely think humans will increasingly work alongside machines. It’s been really interesting to watch the increase in cobotics (“collaborative robots”) on the manufacturing floor. I think that trend will increase in other professions as well. New technologies have been creeping into the workplace for a long time. From computers to cell phones to various types of software, we’ve always had to learn to adapt throughout our careers. AI and new automated tools will definitely be popping up more in our lives, and learning to work with them can only be to your advantage.

SB | What — if any — regulation do you think we should be considering for AI in the workplace?

EW | As my colleague Karen Hao has written, I think establishing a AI code of ethics or regulations will be harder than people think. Before coming up with the laws, we need to figure out which bodies will be responsible for updating, maintaining, or enforcing regulations over AI at work.

I think we should consider auditing for things like hiring algorithms to take a look at whether they are biased or not. When a person’s livelihood is on the line, we should be checking if algorithms are biased or not. For example, Amazon had to get rid of an algorithm they were testing after it was found to prefer male candidates.

SB: Ah, Karen Hao of the famous AI Flowchart! Do you agree, though, that we have learned in the past few years, across a broad swath of technology players, that tech companies can’t be trusted to regulate themselves?

EW: I definitely think additional regulation is needed. The tech giants dominate so many important parts of our lives, especially those dealing with data. We need to closely look at the sources of the power and figure out ways to prevent damage being caused from them being the primary purveyors of our data.

SB | I see your panel includes Dennis Mortensen of x.ai, a company using AI bots to schedule meetings for people, Darja Gutnick of bunch.ai, a firm that uses AI in hiring, and Karl Alomar of Digital Ocean, a cloud computing infrastructure company with a number of machine learning and AI companies hosted there. Looks like a broad range of perspectives. What do you hope to accomplish with the panel?

EW: The panelists use AI to touch on many different parts of the workplace, so I’m interested to see how the problems they are working on tackling overlap. They all will need to contend with things like the elimination of bias and collection of data, so I’m interested to speak to them on those points. I’m also interested to talk to them about how their own businesses are embracing automation and how they have seen the AI industry chance in the past few years. I think the panelists will together provide an interesting perspective on the future of work.

Sign up for her newsletter, Clocking In.

crossposted from stoweboyd.com.