The primary objective of this project is to investigate the influence of workplace automation on meaningful work.
Automation involves employing machines instead of humans to perform work-related tasks and has been a feature of the workplace since the early days of the industrial revolution. What’s new is the rapid technological advancements in data collection, data science, and artificial intelligence, and the way they are transforming modern-day work.
A distinguishing feature of these technologies is their potential to simulate or digitize tasks and capabilities that were once considered exclusive to humans. Thus, many workplace decisions that were once laborious, will either be relegated to decision-support systems, or at least recommended by them, and many of the burdensome tasks professionals previously had to do themselves will be handled by automating technologies.
Consequences
As these technologies transform the world of work, will people lose the connection to what makes their work meaningful because they find themselves assigned to less engaging and less impactful tasks, or will these technologies – by taking over mundane tasks or creating new forms of work – free them to pursue more meaningful work, perhaps by increasing their opportunities for autonomy and self-expression?
About the project
To adequately address these questions, we first need to establish a conceptual understanding of meaningful work that identifies the key elements that contribute to its meaningfulness. Second, we must investigate how automating technologies are likely to affect these elements.
This project aims to accomplish both goals, thereby guiding us towards the practical political feasibility of ensuring that future work possesses the right structure for meaningfulness.
The project comprises two interconnected work packages: one centered on the philosophical and conceptual analysis of meaningful work, and the other dedicated to empirically investigating the influence of workplace automation on meaningful work.
